Late Royal Mail post is ‘badly affecting our national life as a country’

A crisis in letter deliveries is “affecting our national life as a country”, the Labour chair of a powerful House of Commons committee has warned.

Liam Byrne said MPs had been given evidence that people are “just not getting their post” and “are missing medical appointments and court documents” as a result.

The problem was “badly affecting our national life”, he said.

MPs on the committee were told that frontline postal workers were sometimes told not to prioritise doctors’ letters and instead to deliver them “in a pyramid order” behind special delivery items and tracked parcels.

Royal Mail disputes this and says only special delivery comes ahead of them in the pyramid.

Between 29 September and 30 November, 91.6 per cent of second-class mail was delivered within three working days, while 77.5 per cent of first-class post arrived the next working day.

The committee has said this translates into millions of letters arriving late.

Martin Walsh, deputy general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, told MPs on the committee investigating the issue that there was a “recruitment crisis” among postal workers.

He said often staff were walking for six hours and delivering in all weathers, sometimes for little more than the minimum wage.

He added that 50 per cent of new entrants left after the first year.

Royal Mail’s owner Daniel Kretinsky, who was also giving evidence to the committee, asserted there was no “management decision” for parcels to be prioritised over letters.

He said: “I have never heard any instruction, any discussion, or any exchange which would suggest that Royal Mail is prioritising parcels over letters.

“Categorically this is not any management decision and nobody is incentivised to do that, and we think it is actually not happening.”

Royal Mail recently introduced a specialised NHS barcode to ensure NHS letters are being delivered more quickly.

Mr Kretinsky is chairman of Royal Mail’s parent firm EP Group, which took over the institution last year.

He also apologised to customers affected by the delayed delivery of letters.

“I’m deeply sorry for any letter that arrives late,” he told the MPs.

“I’m deeply sorry if we are not delivering the letters on our promise, but I can’t adhere to your sentence that quality of service is declining as the numbers just don’t evidence that at all.”

Mr Byrne said: “Royal Mail is a national institution in meltdown. When barely three quarters of First Class letters arrive on time, that’s a failure costing families and small businesses up and down the nation.

“The question for the new owners is simple: will they fix the service and meet their obligations in full – or allow standards to slide while the rules are rewritten around failure? The public were promised a service they could rely on. It’s time to restore it.”

Royal Mail has said the figures mark an improvement on the previous quarter, but still fall short of the targets set by Ofcom, which are for 93 per cent of first-class post to be delivered the next day and 98.5 per cent of second-class to be delivered within three days.

Last month Royal Mail chief executive Alistair Cochrane said: “While these results show improvements for both first and second-class mail, we recognise that our performance in letters is still not good enough.”

The company denies there is a recruitment crisis, saying that they attract on average 15 applicants for every role and have such a long serving and dedicated workforce, that on average staff choose to stay for 16 years.