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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I think I am grateful for those last two contributions. I am certainly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, because he identified the fact that we may need more rather than less. Accepting the amendment and taking out this opportunity for advice would therefore be a mistake. I think I am also grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Erroll. I think he is indicating that more information may be needed. Certainly, it may be necessary for us to act in those terms in due course. It would not be helpful if we accepted the amendment, which would preclude these aspects. The question of websites is fairly straightforward. The main operating systems such as Windows also come with parental controls. They allow websites to be blocked by genre and can filter access to websites by other criteria. This aspect is straightforward. I recognise that the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, is identifying additional dimensions beyond those on which we need to think further. What I want to say to the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, and the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, who gave him some support, is that we think it is necessary to retain the clause as it is. Many people do not realise that there are simple steps that can be taken to make it difficult for all but the determined and technically capable to use, for instance, a wireless connectionwithout permission. We will need to make sure that they know that. To remove this part from the clause would be a detrimental step. We have had an interesting little debate with some contrary opinions, but I hope the Committee will appreciate that the Government are, for the best of reasons, eager to retain the clause as it is, so that we can meet these issues with regard to advice as ably as the industry can.