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Postal Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his response, but I hope that when he reads it in Hansard he will see that it has left the position even more confused than it was before. He is the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. What we are presented with here is an area which is at the present time unregulated. We are therefore considering whether we should give power to a regulator to regulate this very market in the future. In seeking this extension, the Secretary of State has sought refuge in saying, first, that it is most unlikely to come about and that noble Lords and the other place should not therefore worry about it. Well, we are worried that there will be an extension, and that we will see greater regulation in future. I had thought that the Minister stood for deregulation. However, we have not heard very much about the deregulatory environment in which we now are and where we are supposed to be reducing the burden on business of regulation. Here we have some viable businesses which are not regulated which are now, as he has conceded, worried that there is a big question mark over the future. Although I must have time to carefully consider what he has said this evening and I must consult carefully with those who are most affected by this, I think they will be even more worried and that therefore this is a matter to which we will have to return at Third Reading. I will have to consider first all that he has said tonight, which he says goes further than he went before in reassuring this unregulated market. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment. Amendment 58 withdrawn. Sitting suspended.