LTB 051/26 – ROYAL MAIL UPDATE – PARLIAMENT TO INVESTIGATE RM QUALITY OF SERVICE FAILURES

[POSTMAN]

https://www.cwu.org/ltb/ltb-051-26-roya ... -failures/

LTB 051/26 – ROYAL MAIL UPDATE – PARLIAMENT TO INVESTIGATE RM QUALITY OF SERVICE FAILURES
No. 051/26

17th February 2026

TO ALL POSTAL BRANCHES

Dear Colleagues,

ROYAL MAIL UPDATE – PARLIAMENT TO INVESTIGATE RM QUALITY OF SERVICE FAILURES

All branches and reps will have seen the very significant developments announced by the BBC, which reported that Liam Bryne MP, Labour Chair of the Business and Trade Select Committee, has now written to the CEO of Royal Mail giving the company two weeks to explain what is really happening with quality of service failures. A copy of the letter that has been sent to Royal Mail is attached and you will see it demonstrates how seriously the Government are now taking this issue.

In response, the CWU is clear that we must now step up further engagement with our members and parliamentarians to ensure that the voices of postal workers are fully heard in this parliamentary investigation. The approach to this engagement exercise will be set out in due course.

For their part, the company continues to display a total lack of integrity in trying to explain away these issues and they are clearly in denial about the sheer scale of their self-inflicted UK wide crisis in customer quality, staff turnover/shortages and overtime bans.

CWU meeting with the Labour Government Secretary of State, the Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP and EP Group

In addition to yesterday’s announcement, we can also report that a three-way meeting took place yesterday as referenced above at which Daniel Kretinsky was in attendance. The meeting was scheduled by the Secretary of State to bring both parties together at the highest level to discuss the major problems we are facing.

The outcome of the meeting was that EP Group and CWU agreed to a Government facilitated proposal for a new four-week process of intense talks to resolve all outstanding issues, including USO Reform, equalisation and the full implementation of the agreements EP/RMG reached with the CWU and UK Government. However, whilst we very much welcome this Government led process, we must report that we were not encouraged at all on the position set out by the owner and we will be giving the Postal Executive and Divisional Reps a full report of the meeting later today.

This is a moment where the union needs to mobilise and come together to do whatever is necessary to defend our members, customers and the UK postal service. Our objective is simply to ensure that both parties can honour and deliver all the commitments we made to each other and the government in the Rebuilding Royal Mail Part 1 & 2 agreements. We remain convinced that the positive vision of the future which was laid out in both these connected agreements is the only realistic and sustainable way forward.

Next Steps

Given the seriousness of the situation, we will be holding an online national briefing for branches, divisional and area reps at 2pm tomorrow. This will be followed in due course with a local reps briefing before the end of the week. This is a priority commitment for all Representatives. The link for Wednesday’s meeting will be sent out later today.

In the meantime, it is essential that all branches ensure the content of this LTB is distributed widely to our members in every workplace.

Any enquiries on the content of this LTB should be addressed to the General Secretary’s Office, Dawn Lynch on dlynch@cwu.org.

Yours sincerely

Dave Ward

General Secretary

Martin Walsh

Deputy General Secretary (Postal)