PM vows to safeguard Saturday post

Downing Street leads calls to ignore expected Ofcom recommendations to scrap weekend deliveries

‘It is simply not sustainable to maintain a delivery network built for 20 billion letters’

RISHI SUNAK will not let Royal Mail’s Saturday deliveries be scrapped, Downing Street has said.

Ofcom, the communications watchdog, is expected to publish a document this week outlining options for reforming Royal Mail, which would reportedly include allowing the company not to deliver post at the weekends.

However, Downing Street has today stressed that the Prime Minister holds the “strong view” that Saturday deliveries “provide flexibility and convenience” for customers and that he would not allow them to be scrapped.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said yesterday that such post is “important for businesses and particularly publishers” and added that “the Prime Minister would not countenance seeing Saturday deliveries scrapped.”

The Ofcom document is not expected to contain conclusions or recommendations, and any changes to Royal Mail’s universal service obligation (USO) – which stipulates six days a week of deliveries – would need to be put to an MPS’ vote.

Reforms to the USO could also include overhauling first and secondclass delivery targets, and charging higher stamp prices, said Sky sources.

Last week, a spokesman for Ofcom said that it “would ultimately be for the UK Government and Parliament to determine whether any changes are needed to the minimum requirements of the universal service” following its consultation.

Lucy Frazer, the Culture Secretary, said: “I think the Royal Mail provides an excellent service and one that we all rely on across the country and those letters and parcels are absolutely critical.”

Yesterday, she told Sky News: “I think people will be concerned about that, but I’m sure that there are many factors that have got to be taken into account and that’s not something that I’ve personally been looking at.”

Last year, the Government rejected a request from Royal Mail to move to a weekday-only system, which the service estimated could save them hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

Martin Seidenberg of IDS, which owns Royal Mail, said in its trading statement that “it is simply not sustainable to maintain a delivery network built for 20 billion letters when we are now only delivering seven billion.”

A Department for Business and Trade spokesman said that it would “consider any recommendations that Ofcom puts forward”, but added that “ministers are not currently minded to introduce new legislation to change the current obligations on postal deliveries”.