Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what estimate he has made of the value of the intellectual copyright held by Ordnance Survey.

No estimate has been made of the value of the Crown copyright and data rights in material held by Ordnance Survey. When Ordnance Survey became a Trading Fund in 1999, the opening balance sheet of the Trading Fund did not include an asset value in respect of this Intellectual Property (the geographic data held on the National Geographic Database) as the applicable accounting standards at that time did not enable valuation of the asset. When Ordnance Survey transitions to a government owned company, copyright and data rights will remain the property of the Crown.