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Royal Mail

What I will say is that the maintenance of the universal service obligation—the six-day-a-week, one-price-goes-anywhere delivery—is extremely important. It is at the heart of the Hooper report and we are determined to preserve it. The US postal service has a monopoly on letters, and we have been urged by some critics of our proposals to examine it as an example of why the Government's proposals are not needed. It was recently reported to be heading for a loss of $6 billion after a fall in mail volumes last year of 4.5 per cent. That has led the company to ask Congress for permission to drop the Saturday delivery. Mr. John Potter, the US Postmaster General, said:"““it is clear that the problems we are facing are intensifying…No one knows at what point mail volume will bottom out.””" Unlike in the United States, dropping the Saturday service is not a route that we want to go down. For the first time, our USO is loss-making, but we believe it is valuable to the public and to the small businesses mentioned by the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill). We want to maintain it and to make the changes necessary to do so, rather than consigning our postal service to decline.