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Postal Services Bill [HL]

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, that now is the time to determine whether we have an employee share trust. It will come as no surprise to the Minister to hear that we have for many years advocated that some element of the public ownership of the Royal Mail should be in the hands of the staff rather than the taxpayer. Clearly this is a complicated issue. We are suggesting that if the Government get their Bill through, under which up to 49 per cent of the Royal Mail can be in private hands, of the remaining 51 per cent, half should be retained by the Treasury and the other half should be in the hands of an employee trust. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hoyle, that staff shares should not be sold in the market when someone makes a higher offer; they should be protected so that when someone leaves, those shares come back into the employee share trust. The model that we seek is the one adopted by the John Lewis Partnership and the Co-operative Society, although in both cases they have 100 per cent employee ownership. That may be a model for the post-capitalist world that we seem to be inching inexorably towards. It is no surprise that the largest takeover in the past month has been the Co-operative Society buying the Somerfield supermarket chain. How, in the modern world, can a company organised on a mutual basis be able to borrow the money necessary to acquire a major supermarket chain—as a result of which it is now back to fifth in the list of UK food retailers—whereas a number of organisations organised in a traditional manner find that more difficult to do? The Government initially proposed having 30 per cent of Royal Mail in private hands, but the Bill, if they get it through, would permit them to make it 49 per cent. We propose that half the balance should be in an employee share trust, with the other half retained by the taxpayer. Our Amendment 26 in this group floats a proposal for a figure of 25.5 per cent and makes it clear that that will not affect the definition of public ownership. We do not think that more than 49 per cent should ever be in the hands of anybody other than the Treasury and the staff.