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Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information) Bill

I pressed my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey) on the point about costs related to the amendment. If a local council has access to the data on the visually impaired and those who may benefit from the scheme in the Bill, that information will have to be passed on. The local council will have to respond to individuals who may be claiming their entitlement or, conversely, depending on how the land lies in the Bill proper, the council will have a duty to initiate contact with those individuals. As a result of the amendment, those councils will now include district councils, which until now may not have expected to be included as a data-gatherer or passer-on of that data. The councils that need to transfer the data may not have been aware that they had that extra function to perform. It thus strikes me, without a shade of doubt, that there are cost implications for the council collecting the data, and even just for the transfer of data that has already been collected to the district council or authority and thereon to the BBC or the Government, and vice-versa. I reiterate to the Minister that I have some concerns about point 8 of the explanatory notes, which states:"““The amendment is not expected to have any financial effects.””" That simply cannot be true in this context. I recognise, of course, that explanatory notes do not constitute the Bill and I also recognise that those outside the House should not draw too much from them, but I draw the Minister’s attention to the problem. May I ask him to explain in very specific terms why this transfer of data and function that already exists will have no cost implications whatever? That just seems incredibly unlikely.