Postal Services Bill

My Lords, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, that we intend to put safeguards in place to ensure that the royal associations are used by Royal Mail respectfully and appropriately at all times. We have not yet finalised how these will be structured, but they could, for example, be set out in a legally binding agreement between the company and the Secretary of State. When drawing up such an agreement, we would seek to ensure that the use of the name ““Royal Mail”” was linked to the provision by the company of the universal postal service, and this would prevent it being used in other circumstances. I wondered whether someone was going to ask whether there is not the potential for a foreign owner to misuse the royal associations. That was almost the thrust of the question. We appreciate that there might be concerns about the potential for misuse of these associations, and we propose to put safeguards in place to ensure that they are used respectfully at all times. However, this is a commercial transaction and we wish to stop at this point. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, who knows what brand names are all about from his time as director-general at the Office of Fair Trading, will know all the protections that are encompassed around that.