---

Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I well understand the temptation that the Minister succumbed to of joining in what I think is the third Second Reading debate that we have had so far; I look forward to many more. I was particularly glad that he got so carried away that he conferred on me an earldom that is well deserved but which I suspect is above his pay grade to award. I do not wish to join in the fun, other than to say that it is seriously important to pick up on the comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, to which the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, referred: that this Bill is not about criminalising individuals, whether they are 12, 20 or 85. No proposal in the Bill involves criminalisation. It is very unfortunate when people suggest this, because it gets the debate off on the wrong foot. Indeed, those of us who followed the process that has ended up with the proposals in Clauses 4 to 17 will be well aware that a lot of the internal debate was about the absolute importance, in trying to get the balance right, of eliminating criminalisation from the Bill. I will withdraw the amendment in a moment, but one or two issues to which the amendment relates should be focused on. First, the Minister suggested that its purpose—the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, who is now returning to his place, made the same point—was to remove copyright holders’ current rights to pursue individuals who download, or who commit what they would regard as copyright theft. That is not the case at all. If noble Lords read the amendment—clearly, few noble Lords who have participated in this debate have done so—they will see that all that is proposed is a graduated response and that the process set out in Sections 124A and 124E of the Communications Act 2003 should be used by a copyright holder who wishes to engage their lawyers to pursue individual infringers. That is all they have to do. While that graduated response is gone through, they have exactly the same rights that they have under existing law. The amendment in no way attempts to remove from existing copyright holders the rights that they already have to pursue individuals if they choose to do so. This is important because, as the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, has indicated, thousands and thousands of people out there are illegally downloading material. The whole purpose of Clauses 4 to 17 is to set up a system through which there is a graduated response to get those people to stop before they lose their internet access. A graduated response would deal with the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, and others: namely, getting the balance right between people who feel that they are entitled to download material and copyright owners who feel that they are being deprived of their royalty income. In conclusion, the owners of the rights—the companies, the individuals—cannot have it both ways. They have spent an awful lot of time lobbying the Government to bring in the proposals that are now enshrined in the Bill, assuming that it is passed. The whole point is that there should be a graduated response, and education—people should realise that they cannot do this. They cannot, on the one hand, say that they want the huge effort that is being made by the Government, by the ISPs, by their own companies and by Ofcom to get a code that everyone will observe, and, on the other hand, say that they also want exactly the same rights to pursue individuals in the ways that have been criticised. That is the purpose of the amendment. Until I heard this debate, I had not realised how important the amendment was, but I have pleasure withdrawing it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 33 withdrawn. Amendment 34 Moved by