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Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information) Bill

It is fair to say that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee would have made that point had it felt it appropriate so to do. When I say it has given a clean bill of health, it has presumably approved all aspects because it is very thorough in the way in which it looks at matters. It will not surprise the noble Lord, Lord Howard, that we do not agree with his arguments. Our approach, as set out in Clause 2, strikes the right balance between certainty and flexibility—in an operation like this flexibility is of enormous importance—enabling the scope of information that can be shared with the scheme operator to be narrowed so that only certain descriptions of information essential for the scheme are disclosed while allowing these rules to be adapted if there is an operational case to do so. Placing the detail in the Bill would not confer any additional protection, but would mean that further legislation would be required if the list of items was not correct. The lack of flexibility may have important implications for the successful delivery of the scheme. I hope that the noble Lord is convinced by those arguments.