MP asks Government to deliver ban on low-level letterboxes in new Bill
She said the Government could halt the danger to postal workers by changing existing British Standards – required technical regulations on products and services in the UK – to ensure manufacturers and housebuilders install the features at least 70cm off the ground.
Introducing a 10-minute rule Bill in the Commons, Ms Midgley told MPs: 'This Government says it wants to raise standards and focus on delivery. So I have got a perfect Bill for them. It's the Letterbox Positioning Bill.
'Last Christmas, I visited the Royal Mail delivery office in my constituency in Huyton. I watched our posties working flat out, and it really hit home how hard they work, whatever the weather, whatever the conditions, and I asked, what could I do to help?
'They said 'sort out those low-level letterboxes', because they're worried that one of these days, one of them could get a life-changing injury.'
She said one postal worker in Lancaster lost the top of a finger when it was bitten off by a dog when he was posting a letter. Another in south London suffered damage to a finger when a dog 'locked on' to his hand, she added.
'Around 1,000 of our posties have had their fingers partly or fully bitten off through a letterbox in the past five years. It is clear to me that letterboxes have reached a new low, and it's time we in this House raise them,' she said.
MPs also heard political party campaigners had suffered injuries while leafletting.
Deputy Speaker Nusrat Ghani responded to the end of Ms Midgley's speech and said: 'As a frequent leafletter in Sussex Weald I am particularly invested in this piece of legislation.'
In addition, the Commons heard that Royal Mail had recorded more than 18,000 back injuries in one year. Ms Midgley said Ireland, Portugal and Belgium had already adopted measures similar to those she proposed.
'Let's catch up with our neighbours on this,' she said. 'Let's raise the bar, or height, literally on letterboxes. It will save pain, prevent injury and cut costs.
'It's the right thing to do for the people who deliver our post, a part of our community who look after us day in, day out.'
She added: 'So I ask this House to give this Bill the stamp of approval and get it signed, sealed and delivered.'
Her Bill will be added to private members' Bills that could be debated on July 11.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
European leaders to meet with Trump at White House alongside Zelensky tomorrow after Putin showdown... but Starmer has yet to confirm he will travel
European leaders will join Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky for his crucial meeting with Donald Trump, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said today. The move in relation to the key White House meeting tomorrow is an apparent effort to prevent a repeat of the heated encounter Mr Zelensky faced when he met Mr Trump in February. The European leaders' presence at Mr Zelensky's side, demonstrating Europe's support for Ukraine, could potentially help ease concerns in Kyiv and in other European capitals that Mr Zelensky risks being railroaded into a peace deal that Mr Trump says he wants to broker with Russia. Ms Von der Leyen, head of the European Union 's executive branch, posted on X that 'at the request of President Zelensky, I will join the meeting with President Trump and other European leaders in the White House tomorrow.' In a quick succession yesterday, a stream of European leaders also announced that they will be going. They included French president Emmanuel Macron, the chancellor of Germany Friedrich Merz, and the secretary general of the Nato military alliance Mark Rutte. The grouped trip underscored European leaders' determination to ensure that Europe has a voice in Mr Trump's attempted peace-making, after the US president's summit on Friday with Russian leader Vladimir Putin - to which Mr Zelensky was not invited. Sir Keir Starmer has not yet confirmed whether he will also attend tomorrow. More to follow (From left) Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the Presidential Palace in Kyiv after a 'coalition of the willing' meeting on May 10
Telegraph
6 hours ago
- Telegraph
Trump's strongman capitalism risks killing American enterprise
If it actually happens, no doubt the president will describe it as 'the deal of the century'. The United States government is reported to be examining buying a major stake in the microchip manufacturer Intel. It is part of a growing trend of the Trump administration becoming more and more involved in the running of the giants of American industry, with the state taking a share of Nvidia's revenues in return for export licenses to China, meddling in the management of Eli Lilly and Coca-Cola and drawing up a spreadsheet of 'pro' and 'anti' businesses in the White House. We can all understand what Donald Trump is getting at. He wants to make America more competitive and doesn't mind rolling up his sleeves to make it happen. The trouble is, state interference in business always goes horribly wrong – and in reality Trump's version of strongman capitalism will be the death of American enterprise. It was, at least, good news for Intel's long-suffering shareholders. The shares spiked by 7pc on Thursday as news leaked that the White House was looking at taking a direct stake in the business. After all, the share price has fallen by 50pc over the last five years, and after setbacks in all its major markets it was a sign that the company might soon have the full financial muscle of the US treasury behind it. We don't know yet how much it might pay for the shares, or how many it will buy, but following a meeting between Trump and Intel's chief executive Lip-Bu Tan some kind of deal looks likely. That is part of a growing trend. In his second term, Trump has not just been imposing tariffs, often haphazardly, on the rest of the world. He has been involving himself directly in the management of some of America's biggest companies. Earlier this month, the chip giants Nvidia and AMD agreed to pay 15pc of their Chinese revenues to the US government in exchange for permission to export to its main rival. Last month Coca-Cola agreed to replace corn syrup with cane sugar as a sweetener in its fizzy drink at the suggestion of the president. Eli Lilly is increasing the price of its diet injection Mounjaro after Trump complained that the 'fat drug' was cheaper in London. The White House was reported to have categorised more than 500 companies and trade associations, according to whether they were for or against his 'big, beautiful bill' that set the budget, with the clear implication there would be favours for those on the right side of the ledger, and punishments for those on the wrong side. Meanwhile, last week Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, argued that the 'Japanese, European and Koreans will invest in companies and industries that we direct them to, largely at the president's discretion'. The list goes on and on. At this rate, Trump will soon be on the phone to Amazon's Jeff Bezos telling him who to choose as the next James Bond, and advising McDonald's what to put on the breakfast menu (more hash browns, presumably). He is rapidly turning himself into the chief executive of USA Inc. Sure, we can see what the president is getting at. If we take microchips as an example, Trump, like his predecessor Joe Biden, wants to bring manufacturing back onshore, and he wants to protect critical supply lines in what is clearly the most strategically important industry of the 21st century. No doubt he sees Intel as the best vehicle for making that happen. Likewise, he wants to beef up the competitiveness of American industry. If that means throwing the weight and muscle of the White House behind the country's industrial champions then he doesn't mind rolling up his sleeves and getting on with it. After all, French presidents do it all the time, so there is no reason why American ones should not as well. And in fairness, if you are going to have a president who meddles in the country's corporations, Trump is probably better at it than most. At least he knows how a company works. There are two big problems, however. First, whenever the state gets too heavily involved in the management of a company it always ends up going horribly wrong. The priorities change, the management loses focus, and the other shareholders are ignored. To take just one example, look at how poorly Air France has performed since Emmanuel Macron built up a 28pc stake in the airline: its shares, despite a recent rally, are down by 25pc over the last five years, while IAG, the owner of British Airways, is up by 188pc. It is hard to believe that Intel under partial state ownership competing against fully private rivals in the micro-processor industry will fare any better, and it may well end up being completely destroyed. More seriously, it looks scarily like the version of strongman capitalism that is practised in Viktor Orban's Hungary, or which has been tried countless times in South America. It starts with some well-intentioned support for corporate champions, and it might even do some good initially. But over time it turns into a system where big money and big politics are so intertwined that markets get distorted, cosy monopolies are allowed to flourish, and innovation and competition are crushed because it doesn't suit someone who has political favours to call in with the government. It is a rotten, deformed version of capitalism, and one that always ends in failure. Trump may or may not take a stake in Intel. We will find out in the next few weeks. He may start muscling in on the management of major American companies or he may not. Either way, the blunt truth is this. The South American-style system of state-dominated crony capitalism that Trump is developing will be the death of the tradition of free enterprise – one that has made the American economy the strongest in the world.
Sky News
12 hours ago
- Sky News
Zelenskyy knows he risks another Oval Office ambush - but has to be a willing participant in peace talks
There will be no red carpet or fly past, no round of applause when Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives in Washington DC on Monday. But the bitter memory of his last visit to the White House will feature prominently in the Ukrainian president's thoughts. In February, he was mocked for not wearing a suit and told he didn't "have the cards" by US President Donald Trump, before being walked off the premises early, like an unruly patron being thrown out of the bar. 3:10 Zelenskyy knows he is risking another ambush in the Oval Office but has to present himself as a willing participant in peace talks, out of fear of being painted as the obstacle to a resolution. There was initially measured optimism in Kyiv after Trump's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, because it appeared that no deal had been cut between Washington and the Kremlin without Ukraine in the room, as had been feared. But that restrained positivity quickly evaporated with the release of a statement by Trump the morning after the night before. In the heady heights of a meeting with strongman Putin, he seemed to have abandoned the one key thing that European leaders had impressed upon him - that there had to be an unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine as an absolute starting point to a permanent resolution. Trump had apparently reached the conclusion that no ceasefire was required. "The best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine... is to go directly to a peace agreement," is how he put it on his Truth Social media account. 23:24 That sent shockwaves through Kyiv. Many there and elsewhere believe Russia has no intention of stopping the war yet, and will use its military advantage on the battlefield to pressure Ukraine in drawn-out negotiations to give up more territory. In the meantime, the slaughter of Ukrainians will continue. It is the most dramatic of 180s from Trump, who before the meeting and after lobbying from European leaders had said he would not be happy if Putin failed to agree to a ceasefire, and even promised "severe consequences". Yet now reports suggest Trump is giving credence to the Russian position - in a phone call to Zelenskyy he laid out Putin's proposal that Ukraine relinquishes even more territory, in return for an end to the war. The Ukrainian president will have, no doubt, been distressed to see the pictures of Putin being greeted like a king on an American military base in Alaska. It is in direct contrast to how he was hosted on US soil. In Trump's orbit everything is a personality contest, and where he has very obvious deference to Putin, he has disdain for Zelenskyy. That makes the Ukrainian's position very difficult.
