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Postal Services Bill [HL]

The Minister may well be about to answer the questions that I raised about the inconsistency between what is specified as falling within a transfer scheme in Schedule 1 and the initial definition in Clause 7(2). There appears to be no mention of the accounting basis of the value of any transfer schemes. I thought that the Minister might agree that would be a useful addition. I also asked about the concern that the disapplication of directors’ duties and some Insolvency Act provisions included in a previous draft of the Bill have now disappeared. It would be helpful to know why they have disappeared. Has any other way forward been found to overcome some of the legal issues around transfers that do not involve giving the Secretary of State power directly to issue a transfer scheme and so circumvent those duties? Finally, having been involved in consultation a great deal in the past, I must say that I am concerned by the Minister’s response to Amendment 18. He might just try again on that, because he may call me worthy in wanting to have consultation with the employees, but the situation at the moment is such that it would be a pretty inexpensive olive branch to meet those concerns, and I cannot quite understand why the Minister cannot give me that assurance. Those are just some of the questions that he may have been about to come to, and I will have to decide what to do with my amendment once I have heard his further comments.