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Postal Services Bill [HL]

Amendments 28 and 29 simply propose drafting improvements to a part of the Bill that by my reading does not quite make sense. Clause 12 deals with the calculation of the proportion of a company owned by the Crown or any other person. I am assuming that this clause will establish whether or not the requirement that only a minority stake in Royal Mail is to be sold has been met. Subsection (1) sets out four methods of calculating the relevant proportion, of which the smallest is to be used. This more or less makes sense until you realise that different paragraphs will undoubtedly apply when looking at the Crown than when looking at the private partner. For example, let us say that a deal is established which gives the private partner 20 per cent of distributable profits but 30 per cent of voting rights, the remainder of both staying with the Crown. Under subsection (1) the Crown would be held to own 70 per cent of the company while the private partner would own 20 per cent. That would clearly be nonsense. The amendment would ensure that the Crown’s percentage was, as is currently drafted, the smallest percentage under subsection (1), which the Government seem to agree with, and any other person’s would simply be derived from that. We are in technical territory and I hope that I have read the clause right. If I am mistaken about its intent, I apologise and hope that the noble Lord will provide us with more detail. I found the Explanatory Notes somewhat unhelpful as they merely quote parts of the clause verbatim rather than adding further explanation. I beg to move.