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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I declare my current involvement with a number of companies acting in the digital economy—PayPal, Eutelsat and EMI—and I note my past association with the BBC. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, proudly proclaims his former membership, or perhaps current membership, of a trade union, the NUJ. He inspires me to proclaim my former membership of the long-forgotten ACTT, the Association of Cinema and Television Technicians. I greatly welcome some of the key measures in the Bill—for example, the proposals to improve our digital communications infrastructure. Britain, let us not forget, lagged seriously behind other leading countries in the first phase of developing broadband services. The primary cause of that was, of course, the failure of the regulator to grip BT. This Bill now offers the prospect of a catch-up—the strategic roll-out of high-speed broadband to an estimated 80 per cent of the population. Reaching the last 20 per cent will, no doubt, become our next preoccupation. Secondly, the measures in the Bill for countering copyright theft are well considered and proportionate. Let us be clear—as the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, emphasised with considerable force and eloquence—that the arts, music and entertainment sector is a very large part of the British economy, fostering creative expression, wealth creation and employment; that copyright theft has increasingly undermined the sector’s conspicuous creative and business success; and that unless that threat is countered effectively, the industry’s prospects will diminish. Let us also be clear that this is not a small problem: a huge proportion of internet traffic—probably around a half—is taken up with the pursuit of copyright theft of various kinds. For instance, on the day that new countermeasures were introduced in Sweden, internet usage simply fell off a cliff. For the avoidance of doubt, let us finally be clear that the Bill does not inaugurate—as some have suggested—a snooper’s charter. The ISPs will not be required to spy on their customers. Rather, the carefully graded response set out in the Bill will apply only to an absolutely identifiable account which is used at a precise moment in time, measured to the second, by someone who admits to possessing specific named content and then transmits that content online to a third party in breach of copyright. In respect of music, that content will overwhelmingly be available easily, speedily and for payment from online sources. I accept the view already expressed that the music industry certainly could have done a lot more to facilitate online payment in the past. But it does now. My only concern about the process outlined in the Bill is that it may discourage criminal prosecution for persistent, flagrant theft. It is theft—as the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, asserted—the moral equivalent of persistent shoplifting of CDs or DVDs at an HMV store. The internet service providers should neither ignore it, nor abet it, nor appear to condone it, which some come dangerously close to seeming to do. The noble Lord—the Secretary of State of almost all he surveys—has been typically unequivocal and bold in adopting these measures, and he deserves praise for that. So does the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Barnes, for tackling, against the clock and in quick time, under the Digital Britain umbrella, a formidable list of issues, and for resolving some of the most stubborn. He appears to be sporting a tan. I hope that he has enjoyed his well earned rest after the trials of No. 10 and project leadership. However, as we step back at the end of the Digital Britain process, perhaps I may make some broad observations about where we now find ourselves. The first issue is how we as a nation are to maintain our glorious tradition of public service broadcasting as the digital age brings enormous structural change to the industry, as competition in the provision of public service programming erodes, and as our national investment in high-quality British production declines. That is the way to frame the issue, not just to ask questions about the BBC. It was right to recognise in the Digital Britain process that the traditional providers of regional and local journalism and information, in print and over the air, are highly challenged. That really should worry us. But many other genres of public service content are also threatened, or soon will be. It was well intentioned, but I think too limiting, to focus primarily only on one genre and to look for a short-term fix, shifting funds from one convenient bucket to another. It was wrong in principle, I think, for the Government to consider intervening in such granular fashion in the provision of journalism. Our genius as a country since the 1920s, almost alone among developed nations, has been to keep government at arm’s length from such matters and to address them through enlightened regulation. A job for the next Government will be, I hope, to step back—we heard echoes of this at the beginning of the debate—and to address comprehensively the future of public service broadcasting and the role of the BBC within it. Like the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, I hope that that will not be a monopoly role. The Bill is not entitled a digital communication Bill, but rather a Digital Economy Bill. So my second observation is that we do not yet have the appropriate machinery of government to deal with the vast and growing challenges of the digital economy. The Bill barely scratches the surface of that. It is as if, 30 years after the invention of the motor car, there were no Ministry of Transport. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, with his usual precision, clarity and verve, ran what was, in effect, a short-term project. He was not in a position to encompass the whole diverse catalogue of issues that the digital age is throwing up. I give just a few examples. First, online fraud is sophisticated and organised; it is both national and global; it is enormous and it is mushrooming; yet the law enforcement agencies here and in other countries are still not past first base in countering it. Secondly, wicked men and women can entice strangers online to commit dreadful acts of evil on children and others, yet there are still too few virtual bobbies on the digital beat to deny them. Thirdly, malware introduced surreptitiously to your personal computer, like the creature in "Alien", helps create powerful, malign and parasitical networks, yet the many loose networks of criminals operating in this space act with impunity. Fourthly, without a framework of standards, the emergence of cloud computing—vast storage and functionality sited away from the desktop—may place businesses, citizens and consumers at risk. Fifthly, the ability of search engines to monitor your personal online activity and to exploit it commercially will raise increasing privacy concerns. Sixthly and finally, online content may be woefully inaccurate or even defamatory, but it is a world where remedies are hard to find. There are many other examples, but in sum, the digital economy is, in many respects, a lawless, unpoliced and unregulated place and I do not believe it can remain that way for much longer. This Bill is more than a step in the right direction, but we will sooner rather than later need to make a far bigger leap and to review, in the most fundamental ways, how we are not only to harness digital technology for the common good, but also how we are to deal with the enormous problems that it brings too. That review will require a substantial rethink of how Whitehall can be organised to bring a real and continuing focus on every aspect of the digital economy and what institutional framework will be needed in support.