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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response, which offered very helpful clarification. We now have the draft outline of the initial obligations code. Particularly helpful were the Minister’s statement about the audit trail and his general statement, which is now on the record, that the standards of evidence should be as high as possible. Of particular importance was his saying that it will be made clear in the code that these are allegations. I hope that there will a review of this draft and further drafts to make sure that that is the case. One of the purposes of Committee is to hear from Ministers that procedures are very much in line with assurances that have been given, so that we can be informed when relevant statutory instruments—about which the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and the Minister spoke earlier—are going through and when codes are being approved. It is extremely important that the language that we use about these allegations is reflected in the code. I notice that the outline code already states: ""The CIL will facilitate targeted civil action by copyright owners against the most serious alleged infringers"." That gives me hope that the way in which infringers will be talked about is in terms of allegations, but it is important that we do not stray over the boundaries and suddenly think that people are "guilty". Otherwise, we will not have due process, which is what the amendments from these Benches are striving for. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 35 withdrawn. Amendments 36 and 37 not moved. Amendment 38 Moved by