@V Yates:
Have you read the full Cambridge report - I have. The case is very poorly made indeed and the assumptions are many. It would only take a very small change in some of the assumptions to make the arguement come down strongly in favour of the status quo.
Could you specify? That would be useful. I think a number of the assumptions grew from the fact that the trading funds couldn’t, or wouldn’t, split their “raw” and “refined” duties (or “public” and “extra” tasks.
Where does this cross subsidy idea stop? This is in effect demanding that private individuals pay a TAX when they buy or sell their house so some entrepreneur can make millions out of free data. This is totally wrong and totally contrary to the well established principle of the "user pays". This will in effect distort markets by removing this important principle.
This cross-subsidy idea is one we’re examing in this campaign because it’s politically more welcome than suggesting government just finds an extra £12m=£30m from Treasury to fund the idea.
Private individuals already have to pay when they buy (not sell - there’s no charge for discharges, which is why one estimate above excludes them) a property: registering is obligatory under law, with Land Registry. The surcharge suggested is small compared to the LR fees, and miniscule compared to the price of the typical house - moreso once you factor in other costs such as moving and solicitors’ fees.
Entrepreneurs making money? And presumably employing people in a creative industry using information (which the government keeps telling us is important); and presumably also people won’t pay money if they don’t think the service has value. (It’s the Adam Smith principle.) And competing with other entrepreneurs with access to the same data, who might push the price down. Users benefit.
The principle of “user pays” is not well-established in the field of taxation and government. In fact, it’s non-existent. I pay for schools in Wales and hospitals in Scotland through my taxes. That’s fine: society benefits. In this case, a large group (7m transactions, notice) pays a small charge, because they’re doing a transaction which is based around OS data, which benefits wider society. They’re the user, the beneficiary and if they make those millions, perhaps they’ll be paying for it too through those LR surcharges.
The Cambridge report uses flawed ecomnomic arguements (the terms of reference specifically excluded consideration of these and other important factors) and ignores many other equally important principles (both economic and otherwise) which are against the FOD idea.
Please cite them. It would be good to have some debate about the study.
The Free our Data campaign is poorly founded in that it is NOT in many cases "our data". In many cass the taxpayer has not paid for it but a business, albeit a government owned one, has - a business which is funded totally by the customers of that business who have NO CHOICE but to trade with that part of government. If the OS were a private sector company no-one would suggest the data would be free - why should they simply because the government owns, but importantly does NOT fund, it.
Who elects government? We, the citizens. Who funds government? We, the citizens. Who therefore owns the government’s businesses? We, the citizens. We are trying to decide what the best way to organise those businesses is. There isn’t just one way to do it.
And government *does* fund OS. Just indirectly, by buying its products. Some departments can’t afford to, and the quality of their output suffers as a result. Others can’t share results because of “crown copyright” and restrictive use. Does that really benefit society?
We don’t like the idea of OS being a private-sector organisation, for reasons we’ve cited here many times.
The idea that Land Registry fees are increased to that OS data can be free is absurd. Part of the report also suggests that Land Registry fees are increased so as to fund free access to the LR data itself. If these two things are added together then the TAX on home buyers wil become outrageous.
We’re suggesting £6 on a transaction that is worth thousands of times more. The wider benefits have been evaluated (though you’re welcome to submit your own calculations, pointing out where the Cambridge study went wrong) as being more than £100m.
There are also other issues with Land Registry data in conection with privacy where LR have recently been forced to reduce access to information to reduce fraud. The FOD campaign would provide a field day for fraudsters not to mention the above points.
The FOD campaign has always insisted it’s about non-personal data. We don’t want more fraud. Our suggestion relates to OS and its mapping products specified in the Cambridge report, not LR data (though sensible free release of that would be part of the campaign).
I am sure we can all think of some "inelastic" goods which we could TAX to subsidise our favourite hobby horse - why not add much more to LR fees to fund the health service for example - once this idea is taken up there wil be no end.
Putting “tax” in capitals might make it look scarier, but the obvious retort to your suggestion is that LR transactions don’t have any relationship to hospital admissions. However, every LR transaction is related to an OS location: they’re symbiotic. That’s why geographers think it might make sense to use that connection in this way.
Also, you misattribute the inelasticity of LR demand. It’s inelastic not because it’s essential (we can live without buying a plot of land) but because its charges aren’t deal-breakers in the transaction. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that its charges show a large degree of inelasticity. If they got to the levels of stamp tax, that would change. But we’re definitely not suggesting that.
