Royal Mail must offer a quid pro quo if it cuts deliveries

Here’s the truth – we send far fewer letters than we used to.

- JAMES MOORE

Electronic communication is faster, cheaper and (much) more reliable. It is against this backdrop that the watchdog Ofcom kicked off a “national debate” on the future of the Royal Mail’s universal service obligation (USO) at the beginning of the year.

It now seems minded to accept the latter’s proposals for reforms.

These would see second-class deliveries every other day with nothing on Saturday. There would still be a next-day delivery service for those paying for first class, including Saturdays. This was always coming. Martin Seidenberg, the boss of Mail owner International Distribution Services, puts the number of letters posted at 6.7 billion a year compared with the peak of 20 billion. The company also says it lost nearly £350m on providing the universal service in its last financial year.