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Postal Services Bill

I have a great deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) and with everyone else in the House who wishes to protect the relationship between the Royal Mail and the Post Office. We all want that relationship to continue, but I have severe reservations about whether we can enforce that through Government legislation. If we examine the situation between the two companies, we will see that they rely on one another. There will continue to be a long-term contract in place between them because there will remain an overwhelming commercial imperative for the two businesses to work together as they do now. The chief executive of Royal Mail, Moya Greene, has said that it is ““unthinkable”” that there will not always be a very strong relationship between the Post Office and Royal Mail. However, legislation is not the appropriate way for the commercially sensitive terms of a relationship between two independent businesses to be settled.