Competition for post `should be speeded up’

The failure of the Royal Mail to meet its delivery targets suggests that competition should be speeded up to give customers more choice, the head of the industry’s regulator said today.

Nigel Stapleton, chairman of Postcomm, said the Royal Mail’s recent return to profit had been at the expense of customer service.

He told a London conference: “Royal Mail has missed all its service targets for last year and the first quarter of this year. That is effectively a covert price increase and suggests competition should be speeded up so customers have more choice.”

Mr Stapleton added that the 80 million items of post a day handled by the Royal Mail and its “substantial” economies of scale acted as barriers to competition.

Postcomm is consulting on bringing forward the introduction of full competition in the postal industry by 15 months to January 2006.