§ Mr. Gordon Brownasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what information he has about the number of persons who bought shares in British Telecom who have now sold them.
§ Mr. ButcherI will reply to the hon. Member as soon as possible.
§ Mr. Gouldasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) why some British Telecommunications shares applied for by British Telecommunications employees and pensioners were not allotted;
(2) whether employees and pensioners were given undertakings prior to the sale of British Telecommunications shares that they would be allocated all the shares for which they applied.
§ Mr. Butcher[pursuant to the reply, 25 April 1985, c. 523]: The Government gave no undertaking that British Telecom employees and pensioners would be allocated all the shares for which they applied. The priority offer made to employees and pensioners was subject to the terms and conditions of the overall offer which included the normal discretion for the issuers to scale down any application. We decided that it would be inappropriate to allocate more than 20,000 shares to individual employees and pensioners against a background where members of the public were restricted to a maximum of 800 shares each.