---

Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Whitty, the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and my noble friend Lady Miller for taking part in the debate and supporting the amendment, and the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for his contribution. The Minister claimed that the Bill is compliant with EU law. He claimed that elements such as the fact that subscribers can be heard as a right of appeal make the Bill compliant. The reason for the amendment is that we do not believe that the Bill is compliant with those principles. There is a lack of specific statement about the burden of proof, the allocation of costs, and the quality of the evidence. There are many aspects that need to be explicit but are not stated. We need a set of guiding principles. The Minister says that he sympathises with the sentiment of the amendment. He accepts the underlying principles and says that the Government are working to those. If they are working to them, I hope that they will be accepting a whole load of amendments coming down the track on precisely some of the areas that I have mentioned. Perhaps those who wrote the Minister’s notes have not noticed that increasingly in legislation we see sets of principles specifically set out at the front of Bills. If the Minister does not like the language here, which is that the Secretary of State must demonstrate before any actions are taken that they accord with EU law, certain principles and so on, there are other ways of writing that in legislation, such as by saying that certain principles have to be observed when orders are brought forward and when codes are drawn up. There are other ways of stating that certain principles need to inform the warp and weft of the clauses. I thought that the Minister went somewhat off piste on Clause 17. I know that there will be a great conflagration on Clause 17, but I shall resist the temptation to talk about it now. If there were ever an example of how the principles that I have been talking about will be transgressed by the Government, it is in proposing Clause 17. We have battles to come in that respect. I do not believe that putting these principles in the Bill would be some unnecessary bureaucracy. The Minister seems to be adopting a Bill drafting pragmatism, but he needs to consider the reassurance of stating in the Bill a certain set of principles by which any order or code is to be drawn up or any procedure is to be adopted. That is vital if he is to create public confidence and that very balance that he himself mentioned. The Minister may not have heard the last of this in terms of the kind of umbrella network or framework of principles that we wish to see in the Bill. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 34 withdrawn. Clause 4 : Obligation to notify subscribers of reported infringements Amendment 35 Clause 4 : Obligation to notify subscribers of reported infringements Amendment 35 Moved by