Postal Services Bill

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, for his support for the amendment, and my noble friend Lord Brooke for sharing again his experience of working in this operation. We can laugh about it even if we cannot always agree on the absolute detail of what the figures mean. My noble friend Lord Brooke said that this was an opportunity for the Government to show themselves to be progressive in these matters, a theme which has run through most of our debate today. I am grateful to have had confirmation that the Government feel that the employee share scheme should be pushed forward and supported. We are pleased to have had confirmation that shares will be available from the first tranche. The Minister said that the Government were minded to go for a trust but were not quite sure. There will be a point where they have to come down on one side of the fence or the other. We can see the argument for keeping options open—we are not so daft as not to—but what the purchaser is going to get needs to be clear. I would have thought that any purchaser who wanted to put a very large stake into Royal Mail would want to know that it is a well run and productive corporation and will do the job in which they are investing. That must require them to have good employee relationships, and we have argued—I think that the Minister agrees—that there is a case for ensuring that the employees’ involvement is proper, appropriate and at the level which will mean that we will get a well run and productive firm. We have argued for greater than 10 per cent—I got a sense of some support from the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, on that. I do not think that the Minister is minded to go that way and he produced a long list of previous privatisations. But it is the future. Why not boldly go where others have not gone and take it up to 15 per cent, and then reflect on that? However, I shall withdraw the amendment. Amendment 16 withdrawn. Amendments 17 and 18 not moved. House resumed. Clause 4 : Restrictions on issue and transfer of shares and share rights in a Post Office company etc Amendment 19 Moved by