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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

I speak to Amendment 143, which is very much consonant with the points made earlier under this grouping though the timescale may be slightly different from that envisaged by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. It seems to us that the Secretary of State should be able to direct Ofcom to undertake an assessment of technical measures only after its first progress report has been received by the Secretary of State. That implies a period of 12 months after the initial obligations code has been adopted. This will ensure that Ofcom undertakes an assessment of the potential imposition of the technical measures and reports on those to the Secretary of State before the Secretary of State can direct Ofcom to take steps in preparation for such measures. The next group will, I think, deal with that aspect. We seek to enshrine this intention by ensuring that the Secretary of State cannot direct Ofcom to assess technical measures before Ofcom’s first full report under new Section 124F is received by the Secretary of State. This would provide reassurance to all parties that they should commit to making stage 1—the technical obligations—effective and not lobby the Secretary of State to exercise his powers under new Section 124G within the first 12 months of the Bill’s provisions coming into effect. This would protect the Secretary of State from unhelpful lobbying, from which I am sure he would wish to be protected, and enable Ofcom to focus on assessing that first stage rather than on the last resort of technical measures. I think that we are all heading in the same direction. It would be extremely unfortunate if, by a side wind, these technical measures were brought into effect before a proper Ofcom assessment had been made. I very much hope that, in one form or another, the Minister will accede to this. I return again to the issue of public confidence—consumer confidence, subscriber confidence and ISP confidence.