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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am proposing this amendment to Clause 7 to make a necessary change to the Bill, and it follows what my noble friend Lord Young has said on the previous amendment. New Section 124D as drafted has the effect of requiring Ofcom to have either approved or made by order a code covering the initial obligations code within six months of new Sections 124A and 124B coming into force. Those sections are introduced by Clauses 4 and 5 which, like the majority of the clauses in the Bill, come into force two months after Royal Assent. In other words, Ofcom will have to approve or make an initial code no later than eight months after the Digital Economy Bill receives Royal Assent. We put this deadline into the Bill because we believe it is important that the initial obligations on online copyright infringement should take effect as soon as possible. However, there is no doubt that this is a challenging timescale for the development, consultation on and approval of a code. It is all the more challenging because a code under new Sections 124C or 124D would require notification to the European Commission under the technical standards directive. This will require at the least that the code be notified in a near final form to the European Commission three months before it can be formally approved or made by order by Ofcom. However, since we published the Bill, it has been brought to our attention that the standstill period under the technical standards directive could, under certain circumstances, be as long as 12 months. While we do not expect this to be the case, and clearly we hope that it will not, it is not something over which either Ofcom or the UK Government have any control. Failure to comply properly with the technical standards directive in the making of the code would mean that the code itself, and therefore the related obligations in this Bill, could not be enforced. That is not a risk that it would be sensible to run. I have no desire to relax the pressure on both industry and Ofcom to get a code in place and action under the code as soon as possible. I am therefore not proposing a simple extension to the deadline, but instead a power for the Secretary of State to extend that deadline should it appear to him that it is not practicable for Ofcom to make a code that takes effect within the existing deadline. I believe that this treads a path between taking account of the constraints of the technical standards directive while continuing to make it clear that we want to see the quickest possible progress on getting an initial obligations code in place. I beg to move.