Clause 4 - Annual and other reports
Enterprise Bill
5:00 pm
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
I am grateful for that point, but the difference is crucial. The OFT could conceivably take a different view and consider that the details of its investigations should not be reported, in which case the body of precedent would not be available to the outside world, which would be an enormous shame.
Moving on briefly, and finally, to the more controversial amendment, amendment No. 4, I was interested to see that in a group of only two Liberal Democrats, we seem to have two different views. There is a split, as it were, but Liberal Democrats are not unknown for working both sides of the street on any number of issues.
Our debate on the regulatory impact assessment seems to have got rather fraught. As I have said more than once, I do not understand how the Bill can fail to have a significant impact on business. Even if I am wrong about that, it must surely be easier for the OFT in effect to produce its own annual regulatory impact assessment based on real facts rather than on what might happen when the Bill becomes law. The assessment will be based on real investigations, costs and companies.
It is all very well for the Under-Secretary to go on about the slightly airy-fairy notion of there being benefits to ''business'', or the gaffers, as the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) might put it. However, if she is making the point that some businesses might benefit from a specific investigation, it is equally unarguable that the business investigated successfully–and even more so in the case of the business investigated to no purpose–will have costs to bear. The hon. Member for South Ribble made an interesting intervention. We seek simply to put information in the public domain. It is entirely neutral of itself what use is made of it. It is not some Tory plot to batter the OFT into not doing any investigations. It is information that should be available and people can make of it what they will.