Royal Mail owner defensive amid MP scrutiny

The sale of Royal Mail’s parent company International Distribution Services to Czech billionaire Křetínský’s EP Group was cleared in April 2025, in a £3.6bn deal.

But the business has faced a raft of criticism since over late deliveries and price increases – it is set to increase the price of First Class stamps once more, by another 10p to £1.80 on 7 April, while on the same date the price of Second Class stamps will increase by 4p more to 91p.

The company has also faced claims that postal workers are under much higher pressure and are facing tougher working conditions.

Křetínský told MPs yesterday that he was “deeply sorry” for any letters that arrive late but defended claims that service was getting worse and that parcels were taking priority over letters, and compared the UK’s service and cost expectations to those elsewhere.

“In Italy, for the [First Class] letter we are delivering for £1.70 and £1.80 they charge €5.50 (£4.76).

“We are trying to maintain the prices as low as can be […] but what we need in the future with fewer letters, is a successful parcel business to be able to cross subsidise.”

He added the company had a major issue in “the complete absence of a level playing field”.

We are employing people; our competition is using contracted drivers or owner drivers. The cost to employer, if we compare the old terms and conditions, with the cost of our competitor couriers, are double.”

In July 2025, Ofcom announced changes to the Universal Service Obligation (USO), meaning Royal Mail now only needs to deliver Second Class mail on alternate weekdays, instead of six days a week, from Monday to Saturday.

Ofcom also lowered Royal Mail’s headline delivery targets as part of the changes to the USO, which means that from next Wednesday (1 April) Royal Mail will be required to deliver 90% of First Class Mail within one working day (instead of 93%), and 95% of Second Class mail within three days (instead of 98.5%).

The Communication Workers Union has been urging postal workers to write to their MPs as part of its ongoing #StandByYourPostie campaign.

During the session, CWU general secretary Dave Ward described Royal Mail’s problems as “self-inflicted”.

He said: “They’ve chosen to make a number of decisions that completely devalue a postal worker’s job. The job’s got harder and the pay terms and conditions have got worse.

“Our view is that the reason for that is that the company hasn’t got any other strategy other than almost looking at some of the other parcel couriers and believing that that’s the way you run the company.

“Our view is that if it hadn’t been for the agreements that the union had, and yet to be honoured fully by EP, they would be pursuing a strategy of becoming just another parcel courier.

“We believe there are certain people in the company who want to accelerate letter decline, we think that they see it as a burden.”

The CWU later posted on X that Royal Mail and the CWU “have made perfectly good agreements to ringfence quality service and dignified work [and] if bosses can’t honour this, public ownership is the only option left”.

During the committee yesterday, session chair Liam Byrne challenged Natalie Black, group director for infrastructure and connectivity at Ofcom, on why the company’s CEO and chairman had not shown up.

He said: “Why aren’t they here? Ofcom has in part been called this afternoon because we are deeply unimpressed with its ability to get Royal Mail services back on track, and I am surprised that your chief exec and chair has not chosen to front this up in front of parliament this afternoon.”

The Royal Mail team were meanwhile also quizzed on the whereabouts of the promised improvement plan for the business, and interim CEO Alistair Cochrane said this would be ready to publish once negotiations with the CWU have been concluded.