Evidence was heard from Paula Vennells, Chief Executive, Post Office Ltd, and George Thomson, General Secretary, National Federation of Sub Postmasters.

Margot James MP asked for further examples of "over engineered" products and suggestions for what could be done to simplify them. Mr Thomson responded that, over the last four or five years, the Royal Mail had made the overall mail process a lot more time-consuming, but that this had been done "for all the right reasons".

Mr Thomson also stated that a local post office is expected to do 85% of the products and 95% of the volume of a traditional post office, which he expressed as an unrealistic target. According to Mr Thompson, the Royal Mail could therefore be accused of "overpromising and under delivering". In response, Ms Vennells suggested that a move to volumetric-prepaid boxes, which are standard sizes and easier to use, might ease the burden.

Margot also questioned Ms Vennells about queuing times, and was informed that 75% of customers are served in under five minutes, and that the target is to get that to 90% in under three minutes.

Finally, Margot asked Ms Vennell's about whether or not the Royal Mail's Horizon system should be replaced with a simpler alternative. Ms Vennell stated that it could be improved but that it was not fundamentally flawed.