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Royal Mail

Many of us predicted the impact of what Hooper refers to as ““asymmetric competition”” at the time of liberalisation. I observe that paragraph 193 of the report states:"““Competition reduces Royal Mail's revenue available to support the universal service. And some forms of competition may be inefficient if they simply exploit the constraint placed on Royal Mail to provide the universal service.””" Notwithstanding what he told my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. Reid), will the Minister keep the door open on the possibility of a compensation fund at some future point? My constituents can tell him from their experience of the parcel post market that if liberalisation takes place without proper protection, a universal service might exist but it will exist in name only.