Neil Carmichael
Main Page: Neil Carmichael (Conservative - Stroud)Department Debates - View all Neil Carmichael's debates with the Department for Education
(10 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Michael Fallon
If this were a fire sale, it would certainly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) has said, be one of the longest fire sales in history, given that Governments have been trying to sell Royal Mail for over 20 years. I think we should salute Moya Greene’s achievement in transforming a loss-making public corporation into one of Britain’s top 100 companies and congratulate her, as one of all too few female chief executives, on her award as business person of the year. We have yet to receive any proposal from the remuneration committee.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
When I last visited Stroud sorting office just before Christmas, I noticed that the much-needed modernisation programme was being started. Does the Minister agree that that has been made possible by the sale of shares and that it represents a Government success?
Michael Fallon
Yes. The purpose of the sale was to enable Royal Mail to have access to private capital so that it would not be dependent on the taxpayer for ensuring the successful delivery of the six-day-a-week universal service on which we and all our constituents rely.