Postal Services Bill

But, my Lords, the report to Parliament provided for in Clause 2 is a necessary stage for the Secretary of State to go through before the disposal actually takes place. I agree about the decision in principle; I do not seek to delay that or take things out of sequence, but when Parliament discusses the report it needs to know what is and is not being privatised, at least in broad terms. The reasons for not saying so that the noble Baroness adduced—that we could not do so until we saw the final details of the negotiation—really alarmed me; as I said in my opening speech, there are some pretty good assets here. If a negotiation went on whereby the decision of the putative buyer was rather marginal as to whether it went ahead, and someone said to it, ““Okay, we’ll throw in a couple of dozen prime-site Crown post offices in our major city centres. Does that make it any better?””, that would cause all parliamentarians a degree of alarm. Therefore, if the register of assets is dependent on the negotiations, we have something to worry about. I would have thought that the Government ought to know pretty clearly which assets go on one side of the line and which are on the other already, although they may have to sort out one or two things. If it is subject to negotiations, and if any premises that have a faint double usage by the two parts of the business could go into the bundle offered to the incoming investor taking over the Royal Mail side in whole or in part, the viability, the effectiveness and the asset base of the Post Office Ltd side of the business come into question again. I hope that we return to those issues. I come out of the debate somewhat more alarmed than I went into it. Amendment 12A withdrawn. House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 8.26 pm. House resumed.