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Postal Services Bill

My Lords, it has been a fascinating debate; I did not expect quite as much of a debate as this. This is an important issue. I agree with my noble friend Lady Turner about the value of employee involvement. It is nice to return to agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Cotter, in his evaluation of the importance of involving the workforce; I wholeheartedly endorse that. My noble friend Lord Brooke demonstrated the value of his experience as a partnership director in NATS. Several times in this debate people have talked about there being only one representative. The Minister had trouble dealing with that. In fact, I remind the House that the amendment says ““at least one””. My noble friend Lord Myners made a fascinating contribution. I am glad that he told me what a high-conviction portfolio was; I would have thought it was someone being detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure if he had not explained that. His argument was valid when he talked about the question of risk and the way that other shareholders may be able to diversify their risk, but in many cases those employees are pledging all their working life to the company. The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, pointed out that there might be a flaw in the amendment, but I remind him that it says ““at least one””. I must admit that I was somewhat disappointed in the Minister’s response. The only argument that she could give us was the need to retain flexibility. Are we really saying that one employee representative—if indeed it were one—would wreck that flexibility? If that were the case, if you wanted ultimate flexibility, then why has she boasted about the 10 per cent employee shareholding? I do not believe that that was a valid argument against the very reasonable suggestion in this amendment. Having reflected on the debate, I will withdraw the amendment at this stage. We were somewhat puzzled by the pre-emption, but as we are not going to invoke that we can have that argument outside the Chamber. We will certainly return to this subject, probably on Report. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 4 withdrawn. Amendment 5 Moved by