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Postal Services Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply and for her clarification of the timescale; it was helpful to place that on the record. To respond briefly to a few points, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, that I was not suggesting that this House should do the valuation. I agree with her assessment: valuation by committee—what a thought. My noble friend is right: this is a modest proposal. It is true that it was not in the Bill presented by the previous Government, but as I have said on a number of occasions, we were not going for the full monty, 100 per cent privatisation. Perhaps in hindsight we did not get every aspect right anyway. I freely confess that. Although I welcome some of the points that the Minister made, the reassurances in relation to the National Audit Office and so on are all post-sale. We were trying to get a bit more transparency into the process that precedes the sale. I recognise that she has gone about as far as she can go, as the song said, and in the circumstances I will study carefully what she said but I am prepared to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 2 withdrawn. Clause 24: Information Amendment 3 Clause 24: Information Amendment 3 Moved by