---

Postal Services Bill [HL]

I do not want to get involved in the latter discussion but I was very interested in the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Hampstead, concerning future reporting requirements on the universal service provider. He gave a very helpful analysis of that. I look forward to hearing from the Minister what information Royal Mail will be expected to produce publicly. We are, of course, undertaking a rebalancing process, in the course of which we are setting up an entirely new regulatory regime. Although Ofcom has experience in handling a similar regime in the telecommunications market, it has admitted that the postal services market is different in important respects. Proper transparency will, therefore, be essential in seeing the results of this new regime. While we are talking about reporting requirements, I should be interested to hear from the Minister how much information he believes Ofcom must produce annually on its work. Given the very wide powers it is being given under this legislation, I hope that there will be stringent transparency and reporting requirements in order to allow the public and Parliament to assess how they are being used.