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Royal Mail: Standards

Asked by Zöe FranklinLiberal DemocratDepartment for Business and TradeTabled Answered 5 November 2025UIN 87169

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether his Department has had recent discussions with Royal Mail on the timeliness of their deliveries of (a) penalty charge notices, (b) NHS appointment letters, (c) other time-sensitive and (d) other legally important correspondence; and whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential impact of that level of timeliness on people receiving those communications.

Answered by Blair McDougall

Ministers and officials have discussions with Royal Mail on a regular basis in its capacity as the universal service provider.

It is for Ofcom, as the independent regulator of postal services, to set and monitor Royal Mail’s service standards and decide how to use its powers to investigate and take enforcement action should Royal Mail fail to achieve its obligations without good justification.

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