Sureena Brackenridge

On behalf of my residents across Wolverhampton North East, I put on record our sheer frustration and disappointment about the delayed post. One constituent, Terry, told me that he received letters six weeks late and that 48-hour mail was delivered over a month late. Residents are frustrated that a service they have relied on for decades is no longer delivering the reliability that they expect. Vital correspondence, such as NHS appointment letters, is arriving too late, and delays to letters relied on for finances, such as bank cards, are causing anxiety. Residents deserve a postal service they can rely on. This situation is the fault not of posties and frontline workers, who are bearing the brunt, but of the decisions made by the bosses, who need to be held accountable. Recently, I visited Royal Mail’s Sun Street delivery office alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss). We saw some incredibly hard-working staff, but we also heard about the growing use of the five-day economy service by large organisations, including the NHS, banks and utility companies. That means that letters are being held and delivered together through residents’ letterboxes in large batches. That does not explain every delay, and it must not become an excuse for failing to deliver the service that people deserve. Residents need honest answers about what is going wrong and what is being done to put it right. Our posties, sorting staff and frontline workers must not be made the scapegoat. They work hard, often under immense pressure, to serve our communities. The CWU has raised concerns about bogus self-employment in the wider parcel delivery sector, where some companies can cut costs while workers lose out on employment protections. We need a level playing field where companies compete on service and reliability, not by driving down workers’ rights. I welcome the Government’s consultation on employment status reform, but we need robust rules and effective enforcement to ensure that these protections mean something in practice. Royal Mail management must also take responsibility, and I will continue to work closely with local CWU reps and staff across the delivery and sorting offices to monitor performance, support our workforce and challenge management to deliver improvements. Our postal service matters to every community, and I have heard that from across the House tonight. I ask the Minister a simple question: when residents are let down and frontline workers are under pressure, is this not yet another example of the failures of privatisation, and what will the Government do to ensure that the public interest comes first?