Postal Services Bill
Debate between Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe and Lord Cotter
Lord Cotter
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, and others for raising an issue whose importance I am aware of from my own experience. I was managing director of a small plastics manufacturing company. It had only 30 employees, but it was important to me to bring those employees with me. Our discussion today is an important part of that approach. That employees will have shareholdings in Royal Mail is to be welcomed. It is disappointing that many other companies, of all sizes, do not recognise the importance of involving their workforce. As the noble Baroness and others said, a welcome improvement in labour relations has been seen within Royal Mail. I know that the Minister will take this issue very seriously and I am sure that she will give adequate answers to the points that have been raised. It is crucial that employees have not only shares but a real voice in one way or the other. Without that, so many companies fail. We want the new conglomerate to succeed, to go forward and to bring its employees with it, as opposed to management and employees being at each other’s throats as has sometimes been the case in the past.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
I, too, support the amendment and agree with the line taken by the noble Lord, Lord Cotter. As the Minister knows I was a partnership director of NATS, where, when the PPP was created, 5 per cent of the shares were allocated to the employees. I acted as the director responsible for that element of the share distribution and had conversations with the staff about it. However, it was not entirely satisfactory; I was still at a distance from them because I was also involved in the management side of the business. While anyone who went on to a board would have to be involved in the management side too, if the Government were to accept the amendment there would certainly be someone there who was better able to speak directly for the feelings of the workforce than someone doing so one removed, in the way that I did.
I have been to a number of meetings recently at which coalition government Ministers have spoken about employee ownership and share involvement and extending it over a wider front. Many have spoken about providing greater opportunities for the workforce to be more directly involved with management of companies, particularly where they have a stake in the shares.
The amendment presents a modest proposal—I would have preferred it to suggest that two places should be allocated—but I am reasonably content today to go along with opening the door through one seat being made available for the employees. I hope there will now be an opportunity for the Minister to display, not only to her noble friend Lord Cotter but to a variety of Ministers who have spoken recently on this at meetings, that extending employee ownership will be put into practice when the opportunity is immediately before the Government.