There can be two reasons for privatising a company—on its merits, or on account of prejudice. The hon. Member for Surrey, North-West (Mr. Grylls) said, frankly, that he favours all privatisations, which is a straightforward way of expressing a prejudice—I use the word in a literal and not a pejorative sense—in favour of privatisation. The Government have had the opportunity to consider the proposed privatisation and to assess its merits for several years.

As the Minister for Corporate Affairs confirmed when he opened the debate—I am glad to see that he is still in the Chamber, albeit on the periphery—the Government have the advantage of a Coopers and Lybrand study commissioned in early 1988 and available since July 1988, which was just such a study of the merits of the proposed privatisation. We can be sure that that report has not been gathering dust for the past two and a half years, and that the Minister for Corporate Affairs—who has the reputation, justifiably or not, of being one of the cleverest people in the House—will have considered that report with great care.

The Minister will have considered not only the report's conclusions, but the wisdom of revealing those conclusions to the House. His study seems to come to one of two conclusions: either the rest of us are simply not fit to understand the conclusions reached by Coopers and Lybrand or the conclusions are so embarrassing that they should not be revealed to us because the embarrassment would be on the Government.

I asked the hon. Member for Surrey, North-West a straightforward question when he kindly allowed me to intervene in his speech. My question called for a yes or no answer: did Coopers and Lybrand express misgivings about the proposed privatisation and advise that, on balance, it should not proceed or did they not? Will the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs, when he responds to the debate—I am sure that he will do so in his customary robust and frank way—answer that question? His hon. Friend the Minister for Corporate Affairs inevitably raised suspicion, because he was fudging the issue and seemed incapable of answering any question with a direct yes or no answer.

Therefore, one is driven to the conclusion that the reason for the report's supression is that it advises against the privatisation. That leads us to the verdict that the privatisation is founded on prejudice. "Let us privatise what we can," says the Minister to himself, whether the merits favour it or not.

As a committed free marketeer, I am all in favour of privatising state-owned businesses when the merits are in favour; but equally, it does not serve the interests of the free market, and it certainly does not serve the interests of the privatised company, if the decision is based upon prejudice.