30 Business statistics
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7857/05
COM(05) 112
| Draft Regulation establishing a common framework for business registers for statistical purposes and repealing Regulation (EEC) No. 2186/93
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| Legal base | Article 285 EC; co-decision; QMV
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| Document originated | 5 April 2005
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| Deposited in Parliament | 17 May 2005
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| Department | Office for National Statistics
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| Basis of consideration | EM of 26 May 2005
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| Previous Committee Report | None
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| To be discussed in Council | Not known
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| Committee's assessment | Politically and legally important
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| Committee's decision | Not cleared; information on progress requested
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Background
30.1 The Business Registers Regulation, (EEC) No. 2186/93, of
1993 provides a framework for the creation and maintenance in
each Member State of a business register for statistical purposes.
In the UK the Government maintains this business register using
administrative data supplied from the VAT and PAYE systems within
HM Revenue and Customs, supplemented by data from statistical
surveys of the Office for National Statistics and the Department
for Enterprise, Trade and Industry in Northern Ireland.
The document
30.2 The Commission says the existing Regulation is outdated and
needs replacing to take account of increasing economic globalisation,
increasing integration of different sectors (requiring coverage
of the whole economy) and a need for improved statistical comparability
in the context of the Internal Market. Accordingly this draft
Regulation would extend coverage of Member State business registers
to include the agriculture and fishing and public administration
sectors and require recording and exchange of data on financial
links in enterprise groups, including trans-national enterprises.
The Government's view
30.3 The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (John Healey) tells
us that some Member States oppose extension of the coverage of
these registers to the agriculture and fishing and public administration
sectors but that the Government supports this extension, which
is in line with developments in the UK.
30.4 But the Government is opposed to a provision which could
require data collected under legislation which prohibits its release
outside UK government departments and other specified bodies to
be transmitted to Eurostat and allow its onward transmission to
other Member States. The draft Regulation provides for the precise
choice of data to be submitted to be determined under a comitology
procedure by qualified majority voting.[127]
The Government would prefer to be able to choose itself publicly
available alternative sources of data for submission to Eurostat
and possible onward transmission which did not compromise confidentiality
requirements. But the Minister notes that the Government's concern
about confidentiality is not shared by all Member States, some
of which have long-established principles of sharing data or have
public access to the data concerned. He says that if UK control
over access to the data sources concerned is lost this might affect
public perception of the treatment of confidential data collected
by HM Revenue and Customs.
Conclusion
30.5 We share the Government's concern about the potential
threat to UK requirements concerning the confidentiality of certain
data. The possibility that control of this matter would move out
of the hands of Government and Parliament to an EU comitology
committee raises the issue of subsidiarity. We look to the Government
to argue forcefully for suitable modification to the draft Regulation
and ask the Minister to keep us informed of developments in this
matter. Meanwhile we do not clear the document.
127
Comitology is the system of committees which oversees the exercise
by the Commission of legislative powers delegated to it by the
Council and the European Parliament. Back
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