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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, the first batch of amendments relates to schools, libraries and so on. The Government really must think about this. When I read the further information provided by the Minister—I am afraid that I do not have it to hand—my hopes were raised that the Government would regard them in a different way from other subscribers. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, they have fallen on the wrong side of the Government’s dividing line. This goes absolutely in the opposite direction to what we understood to be the aim of the Digital Britain strategy, which is to widen access and flexibility of use to a range of people, particularly the young, who will use libraries, educational establishments, cultural institutions and other non-profit making organisations in order to advance not only their knowledge, learning and information, but also their electronic and digital skills. It is counterproductive to regard the institutions in the same light as an individual or a commercial operation. Some commercial operators ought to be seen in this light as well, but let us confine ourselves to schools, libraries and educational institutions. The Government must find a better way of exempting them from at least some of the provisions and strictures about what they will be expected to provide to block illegal file sharing, which would have an effect on the range of access that the users of that particular institution would be able to attain in a perfectly legitimate way. This is not a coach and horses. It is a very serious dimension of the Government’s intention to widen access and flexibility with regard to digital services. They are going in the wrong direction.