Bees

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Lord De Mauley

Tuesday 30th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, yes. We have had this discussion in your Lordships’ House before. I was pleased to announce recently that we are developing a national pollinator strategy precisely because of the concerns my noble friend raised.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, may I recommend, as an alternative to pesticides, the method used by the winner of this year’s St Andrews Prize? Around the crop growing areas, the trees were equipped with beehives because the elephants, which were doing the major damage in that area, were terrified of bees. This not only produced safe areas for crops but meant that there was honey money as well.

[Lord De Mauley]

I am really very grateful to the noble Baroness. Farmers have not been complaining to me recently about the numbers of elephants but I shall keep my ears open.

Postal Services Bill

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Lord De Mauley

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

Having listened to all the debate on this issue, I must admit that I have a great deal of sympathy with what is behind the amendment. I also think that times have changed considerably. The atmosphere for putting workers of both sexes on a board was rather different and there was total hostility. I understand the Government’s difficulty about putting this in the Bill, but it would be helpful if the Minister would go away and think about a possible wording that would reassure everyone on this matter. For the well-being of those who are involved, it is important that they are represented—whatever the form, or in whosever hands, the Royal Mail ends up in.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for moving his amendment and all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. While the idea of an employee share scheme representative on the board may well have merits, it is for Royal Mail and its shareholders to decide how it will structure its board, just like any other company would. Thanks to this Bill, Royal Mail’s shareholders will include its employees in the future.

The noble Lord, Lord Clarke, spoke from his experience of the vital importance of effective employee engagement and communication. The Government wholeheartedly agree with him on that. The employee’s shareholding is not the only way to create that engagement. I understand that there are a number of initiatives that Royal Mail is following at the moment which also contribute helpfully to that—for example, the world class mail initiative.

As we have already discussed, in the debate on Amendment 4 on Monday, we ask noble Lords to accept that it is not appropriate to impose the composition of a company’s board through legislation. In fact, I am not aware of a single precedent where such an imposition has been made by statute. Furthermore, if this amendment were passed, it would mean that in the future a fully independent Royal Mail, which had no government shareholding, would be obliged to request new legislation if the company or the employee share scheme were ever to want to change the way its views were represented to the board.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, for her recognition that the scheme will enhance the modernisation agreement concepts regarding fostering better relations between the company and its employees. She raised the fact of employee representation on the boards of some European companies. Of course, my noble friend Lady Kramer is absolutely right that their corporate structures are very different to the typical United Kingdom board structure. The noble Baroness also gently questioned the Government’s commitment to the concept. Perhaps I may tactfully say to her that, as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, admitted in the debate on the previous amendment, the previous Government had to be pushed quite hard even to agree to contemplate an employee share scheme in the 2009 Bill; we are embracing this concept wholeheartedly.

Richard Hooper’s reports for both this and the previous Government stated clearly that Royal Mail must be freed of the “spectre of political intervention”. I ask noble Lords to accept that specifying the composition of the board in statute will not help with achieving this objective. I would therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.