UK factories hit by Red Sea crisis, but recession could be avoided – as it happened

Manufacturing supply chains were impacted by longer wait times for container freight during January in the wake of the Red Sea crisis

• Royal Mail could save 650m by moving to three-day-a-week service, says Ofcom

Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom's chief executive, says:

Postal workers are part of the fabric of our society and are critical to communities up and down the country. But we're sending half as many letters as we did in 2011, and receiving many more parcels. The universal service hasn't changed since then, it's getting out of date and will become unsustainable if we don't take action.

So we've set out options for reform so there can be a national discussion about the future of universal post. In the meantime, we're making sure prices will remain affordable by capping the price of Second Class stamps."

Nine in 10 people (88%) say reliability is important for letter deliveries, compared to 58% for delivery on Saturdays (down from 63% in 2020).^[7]

Most participants in our research were also open to reducing some services and standards - particularly for letters - in the interests of keeping prices down and only paying for what was required. Similarly, there was strong acknowledgement that most letters were not urgent, but people still needed to have a faster service available for the occasional urgent items, even if that meant paying a premium for it.