§ Mr. Gouldasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) if he made it a condition of the placing of British Telecom shares with Kleinwort Benson prior to privatisation that no employees of the firm should deal in the shares on their own account;
(2) if, before settling his final account with Kleinwort Benson in respect of the privatisation of British Telecom, he will seek from the firm information on the number of its employees who used the firm's facilities to deal on their own account in the shares.
§ Mr. Butcher[pursuant to the reply, 18 March 1985, c. 346]: It has not been the Government's practice to seek to impose restrictions on applications by employees of principal advisers in share issues and this was not made a condition for Kleinwort Benson or any other professional advisers in the British Telecom sale. Kleinwort Benson's own policy was to allow employees to apply for British Telecom shares on the same basis as members of the public. The employees were subject to the same basis of allocation as the public and no employees received more than 800 shares.