Statistics and Registration Service Bill

The services that the ONS currently provides—that is, providing information and advice and undertaking surveys—are those that we envisage the board undertaking. The services will be discretionary; there is no obligation to provide them. Any charging is permitted by Clause 24 as expedient in connection with the exercise of the board’s functions. There is no need for an express charging power or a duty to charge for any services being provided. As with any government department, the board will be subject to cross-government rules and guidelines on what it may charge for services. These rules are designed to ensure that government departments and public bodies charge appropriately. For example, as with any government department, the board will be subject to the Freedom of Information Act, competition law and the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations so far as selling information for commercial re-use is concerned. The board will be subject also to a range of cross-governmental administrative rules that set out when it would be able to charge. The problem with the amendment is that the board would lose this flexibility. The amendment is unnecessary, as the board will be covered by the wider detailed framework on charging for services that applies to all government departments. The noble Baroness may be right that services may be provided to third-world countries on the basis of funding from the Department for International Development, but it is not for us to specify such arrangements in the Bill. The board will fit into the pattern of all public bodies and be subject to the same rules governing the basis on which it may charge. It has the right to do so; none of its functions is obligatory. I hope that the noble Baroness will therefore recognise that we have taken into account the concerns that she expressed and have addressed them in the Bill.