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Committee chairman Darren Jones, another Labour MP, added: “I think it’s quite clear that you are using technology to encourage people to be more quick and are marking them against their colleagues. We’ve had testimony from all over the country.”
On a leaked Royal Mail diagram shown to MPs, each postal worker was displayed as a yellow dot.
Mr Lavery said: “My information from individuals in the workplace suggests that if the dot gets bigger, there’s an alarm after one minute.”
Ricky McAulay, Royal Mail’s operations development director, said: “To the best of my knowledge that is not the case, but we are under oath so we will check.”
The admission came as Mr Thompson conceded that Royal Mail is in breach of its Universal Service Obligation to deliver letters six days a week.
He claimed that the public supports a move to cut letter deliveries to five days a week but played down suggestions that Royal Mail has de-prioritised letters in favour of more lucrative parcels.
Another item shown to MPs was a poster from a sorting office which encouraged staff to deliver parcels before letters and said, “Don’t get caught.”
Mr Thompson said: “Anything on there which says ‘don’t get caught’ is clearly not what we do. It’s not representative at all.”
Royal Mail has been locked in a dispute with workers over pay and efforts to modernise since last year.
Industrial action has become increasingly fraught, with alleged cases of violence and intimidation by strikers reported to the police. One person was allegedly headbutted, while some employees were followed and filmed by supporters of the walkouts.
More than 30 million people were affected by delays to their Christmas post, while around 6 million directly missed important mail such as doctors’ notes and insurance documents.
Citizens’ Advice called on postal regulator Ofcom to intervene in January, with its chief Dame Claire Moriarty saying: “For a third year running, Royal Mail has let consumers down.”
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