Mr. John Newham:

I may have missed some of the Deputy's questions because I had to log in again, but I certainly heard the last three. To deal with flexibility, I touched on this matter earlier. We take the point regarding flexibility in respect of filing dates. I am not sure, but I think the CRO showed considerable flexibility throughout the Covid-19 pandemic regarding extending the filing dates. The most recent issue was that we were hearing mixed messages from stakeholders. While accountants, on one hand, did not want an express system and did not want the filing date extended generally, they did want the CRO to deal with problems on a case-by-case basis. For example, where a small firm was undergoing difficulties due to the health of staff, it was desired that the CRO would take that into account and perhaps just extend deadlines for the group of files being dealt with by that specific firm. The legislation, however, does not provide for that type of flexibility. That is why it had to be a case of extending the filing date for everybody or for nobody. That was the context of what was going on. The CRO undertook consultations with stakeholders and that is what resulted in the extension.

Turning to the details, I take the point made about not introducing overly burdensome requirements regarding the additional details required. I suspect that much of the additionality requirement can be achieved through system checking, rather than by requiring additional details to be provided by companies. The PPSNs will take care of much of that, so we will very much bear that aspect in mind. I will hand over to Dr. McFadden to deal with the question concerning GDPR protections, etc.