Sixty Rugby residents complained to their MP about Royal Mail, and the town's talking newspaper for blind listeners says its weekly post is not arriving.
Sixty people in Rugby have complained to their MP about Royal Mail, and one of the casualties is a service that exists precisely because its users cannot read a printed newspaper.
Rugby’s MP, John Slinger, told the House of Commons on 10 September that listeners to Rugby Talking Newspaper are not receiving the weekly audio edition the charity posts to them. He said Royal Mail may be breaking the law by failing to deliver it.
This is his account, given in Parliament. The charity has not made a public statement and we have not asked it to comment.
What was said in the Commons
The exchange took place during Business of the House, the weekly session at which MPs ask the Leader of the House for parliamentary time. It is recorded in Hansard.
Mr Slinger said:
Sixty constituents from all across my constituency of Rugby have contacted me to complain about what is often a totally unsatisfactory service from Royal Mail, with no, slow or bulk deliveries. That has a real human impact. If I may, I draw attention to Rugby Talking Newspaper, whose customers are not receiving this vital service that they rely on. I believe that Royal Mail may well be in breach of its statutory obligation to deliver articles to blind people free of charge.
He asked for a debate in government time on bringing the postal service under more public control.
Sir Alan Campbell, the Leader of the House, replied:
We have been very clear as a Government that Royal Mail’s service is unacceptable, and the example that my hon. Friend gives simply underlines the unacceptability of its performance. The public expects a well-run postal service. I know that Royal Mail listens closely to these sessions.
He did not grant the debate.
Why the post matters so much to this charity
Rugby Talking Newspaper is run entirely by volunteers. Its own website sets out how the service reaches people:
- a weekly news digest, read from Rugby newspapers, is recorded onto a digital memory stick
- the stick is sent out free of charge in the post, every week
- listeners return it each week in a free-post pouch, and the charity reuses it
- the charity will also lend a high-contrast digital player and show people how to use it
So the post carries the service in both directions. A missed delivery does not only mean a listener hears nothing that week. It also means the memory stick does not come back for the next one.
There is an alternative for those who can use it. The charity streams each edition through a talking newspaper app and through an Amazon Echo smart speaker. That is no help to a listener who relies on the posted stick.
“Articles for the Blind” is a legal obligation, not a favour
The service Mr Slinger referred to is the free carriage of articles for blind and partially sighted people, which sits inside Royal Mail’s universal service obligation and is overseen by Ofcom.
He had already asked about it in writing. On 16 July he tabled a question asking what the department was doing to ensure Royal Mail meets that obligation, how timely those deliveries were, and what steps were being taken to improve delivery performance for constituents in Rugby.
The answer came on 7 September, in written question 19606:
It is important that postal services are accessible and work effectively for all users, particularly those relying on the Articles for the Blind service. The obligation to provide this service is set out in legislation and regulations are overseen by Ofcom, as the independent regulator. Ministers have met with both Royal Mail and Ofcom to discuss concerns about delivery performance and will continue to make representations to ensure that customers receive the service they are entitled to.
The reply does not mention Rugby at all. It was asked a question with the town’s name in it and answered in general terms.
What Royal Mail actually delivered, and what it was supposed to
Mr Slinger tabled three more questions on 28 August. The answers, published on 8 September, confirmed something the department had not previously put in front of him: Ofcom is already investigating.
Ofcom opened that investigation on 1 June 2026, case reference CW/01344/05/26. It is examining whether Royal Mail failed to comply with its obligations under designated universal service provider condition 1.9.1 for the 2025/26 regulatory period, and whether a financial penalty is warranted.
The figures behind it, which Royal Mail announced on 29 May 2026, are these.
| Service | 2025/26 target | Actually delivered | Short by |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Class, next working day | 93% | 75.7% | 17.3 points |
| Second Class, within three working days | 98.5% | 90.2% | 8.3 points |
The targets have since been made easier. From 1 April 2026 the requirement is 90% for First Class and 95% for Second Class, down from 93% and 98.5%. Royal Mail’s 2025/26 performance would have missed those lower targets too.
In answer to written question 23636, the government said its position is that quality of service “has not been good enough”, and added that “it is welcome that the most recently released quality of service figures, for Q1 2026/27 show an improvement”. We could not check that figure against Royal Mail’s own published report: its quality of service page refused our request today. We will come back to it when we can read it.
One thing this investigation is not. Ofcom is looking at Royal Mail’s performance across the whole country for a full financial year. It is not an investigation into deliveries in Rugby, and nothing published by Ofcom singles the town out.
What it means for you
- If your post is not arriving, complain to Royal Mail first. Ofcom’s guidance is that you contact the company directly, by post to FREEPOST ROYAL MAIL CUSTOMER SERVICES or through its own complaints process.
- If that gets you nowhere, you can ask the Independent Postal Redress scheme (POSTRS) to investigate. It is the free alternative dispute resolution service for postal matters and Royal Mail has signed up to it. Ofcom notes that POSTRS covers only certain Royal Mail services, and that if yours is not one of them you are left with independent legal advice.
- If you rely on Articles for the Blind, this is a legal entitlement to free carriage, not a concession, and it is enforced by Ofcom rather than by Royal Mail.
- If you want it raised in Parliament, the sixty complaints Mr Slinger cited are what produced both the written questions and the Commons intervention. Writing to your MP is the mechanism that generated the record this article is built on.
What we could not establish
- Royal Mail has not published a statement about deliveries in Rugby, and its own quality of service page was unreachable when we checked on 20 September.
- Ofcom publishes no delivery data broken down by town, so there is no official measure of how Rugby compares with anywhere else.
- Rugby Talking Newspaper has published nothing about the problem on its own website. What is on the record is what its MP said in the Commons.
- No date has been published for Ofcom to conclude its investigation.
We will follow this. If you know how it has affected a Rugby household or a local business, our contact page is the place to tell us.
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