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Postal Services Bill [HL]

The relationship between Government and any partner will be subject to a shareholders’ agreement. This will be a legally binding contract between the Government through Royal Mail Holdings as seller, and the buyer. That document will make clear what the buyer can do, for example on board appointments, and what it cannot do—for example, by placing restrictions on the sale of its shares. I am perfectly happy to respond further to questions about this agreement in due course. I think that it would more naturally arise in debate on subsequent amendments. What I would say at this stage is that the possibility of introducing a full employee share scheme would be something that we would discuss with the prospective partner. Should we reach a joint view that such is desirable, it is something that I think we would want to discuss with the workforce itself to test its opinion. Every last dot and comma of that does not need to be tied down as part of that agreement. That is the context in which we would address this issue.