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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I was unable to be here for Second Reading—I was travelling. I had things that I wanted to say but cannot at this stage. I need to make a declaration. First, I am chairman of a charity called the e-Learning Foundation, which is responsible for all children in this country, especially those from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, having laptops. I am also a shareholder in a company called Syscap, which is an IT services company, and I hold a significant shareholding in Apple. I have been in the IT industry for 43 years—I started in the very early days, and have seen a thing or two in my life—but the most dramatic thing to me is that the IT industry, instead of going into middle age and slowing down, seems to have reverted to adolescence and is growing faster and more frenetically than ever. Look at a product such as the iPhone. A year and a half ago, Apple announced the product called apps—applications—to go on the iPhone. Today, just 18 months later, there are 130,000 applications for the iPhone. I read yesterday that 3 billion downloads—that is one for every two people on this planet—have occurred. That is a measure of the truly phenomenal growth of this industry. Yesterday, Google announced a smart phone product, and it is rumoured that Apple itself will in the next few weeks announce a totally different product, an iTablet. That all means that these handheld mobile devices will be gulping huge amounts of broadband capability; amounts that we cannot even contemplate. That will be truly massive. There will be a convergence of television broadcasting, books, movies and anything you care to mention available on those products. The wording of the duties for Ofcom uses the word "appropriate". I think that the word "appropriate" is totally inappropriate for the requirements of Ofcom. "Appropriate" is a word that you might use for the steel industry, but not for an industry that is growing so fast. When the clause is redrafted, I ask my noble friend for some wording that recognises the sheer growth of this industry and its potential growth in future.