Office of Fair Trading: Research

To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (1) what estimate his Department has made of the cost to individual businesses of being involved in Office of Fair Trading market studies; and if he will make a statement; (242090)

(2) what percentage of the Office of Fair Trading's current workload is comprised of market studies; and what proportion of its budget was spent on such studies in the last 12 months;

(3) how many market studies of public sector activities have been undertaken by the Office of Fair Trading since 2003;

(4) how many market studies have been undertaken by the Office of Fair Trading since January 2003, broken down by market; what the cost was of each study; and what the outcomes were of each study.

These are matters for the independent Office of Fair Trading. I have asked the chief executive to write to the hon. Member directly.

Volume 485: debated on Wednesday 10 December 2008