Royal Mail

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

In terms of holding on to stakes, it is good to note that at least 50% of the original institutional investors have retained their investment, which shows an element of consistency. I point out again that nearly 700,000 retail investors took up the offer and employees took up 10% of the offer. To that extent, it has been a success.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, I have the Hansard for May 2011, when many of us were on to this very point right through the Bill, as my noble friend on the Front Bench said. Could the Minister comment on the validity of the following point? Having moved an amendment to say that any initial public offering—which was initially denied by the Minister as being at all feasible—should be phased, I said that,

“if the Bill reaches the statute book in its present form, in a year or so we will almost certainly have a repeat of the public interest being prejudiced by the modalities of the sale by merchant banks, as has happened some times before”.—[Official Report, 4/5/11; col. 463.]

Is the mistake made by Mr Vince Cable simply that he had a gentleman’s agreement, according to the report, with people in the merchant banks in the City, yet he was not making it with gentlemen? They have put £3 billion into their own pockets. Is that not the most scandalous announcement that we have heard from the Government in all their life?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I think that the gist of the noble Lord’s question referred to the timing of the sale. I remind him that there was industrial action hanging over this IPO, and much discussion was had over whether one should delay or stay. However, it was very clear that one should continue because the industrial strife was not necessarily going to be resolved and that was not going to impact on the timing. That is why we went ahead at that time.