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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, as I have said, I will certainly withdraw amendments at this stage, but I think that there are matters to come back on. On Amendment 19, I accept that there will be elements of confidentiality, which is why I built in the ability to redact. I concede that that might be cumbersome, but the noble Lord will be faced with it in the end; when he gets a Freedom of Information Act request, he has to publish the report with the bits that he thinks should be left out redacted. That is what will happen under the Freedom of Information Act, so he might as well do it anyway. It is merely tiresome of officials to insist on acting otherwise and then to be compelled to do it in the FoI fashion later. On Amendment 28, I should like a presumption of publication. If we are not to have automatic publication, I should certainly like the fact of the commissioning and receipt of a report to be made public, so that people know that something has been commissioned and received and that therefore there is something to expect and discuss. In both instances, I should like to think further and perhaps for the Government to go a bit further. I will write to the noble Lord to suggest what I should like to see. On Amendment 28, we are not talking about things that come within the Government’s purview; we are talking about the Government seeking to extend their purview into something that is currently a private matter. Therefore, the Government’s activities should be known; this should not take place in secret, with the Secretary of State commissioning and receiving a report without anyone else ever knowing what is happening. However, for now I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 19 withdrawn.