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Postal Services Bill [HL]

The amendment is indeed comprehensive. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, on neatly doing what Ministers claimed could not be done. He has given a clear picture of the scheme, linked it to existing legislation and clarified where the two do not match. The question is whether the new scheme should be operated in this way. Clearly, it ring-fences the assets and runs as a company, with the deficit made up from government funding as needed. This would be an unlimited drip-feeding exercise. It is the sort of amendment that we sometimes get from the Liberal Democrat Benches. It would be very expensive as the Government would have to extend the guarantee and would get no assets from the existing pension fund. That is why, as I said earlier, I do not go along with a trust scheme as proposed by the noble Lord.