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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, that was a very interesting exchange. As for the comparison that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, drew with 2002, I think that the Government have learnt their lesson, which is why they want to prepare for the occupation before they declare any public intention of a war. To take my cue from what the Minister said, we should clearly attack the words "at any time" in line 21 on page 13, which is where he wishes us to stick our delaying clauses—our "wait for two years" bits—although we are probably coming down to the formulation proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, of this being done after the first report, rather than my two years. That is where this should bite. After listening to the Minister’s remarks, we should expect to receive a positive response. That would be consistent with everything that the Government have said about there being a real sequence here. In other words, we really are going to give the measures in the first part of this part of the Bill a try. That must mean running them for a year and having a report on them. It cannot be less than that. My second point is that the second to last word in line 36 on page 12 of the Bill should be "might". There is no way that Ofcom can assess whether, ""technical obligations should be imposed"," in the absence of evidence of what is going on. It can only assess whether they might be imposed. That was very much the sense of what the Minister said. If preparations are going to start straightaway, so that this armament is ready for use when Clause 11 triggers it, that I can understand. However, it requires a little bit of revision to Clause 10 to achieve that and a specific time limit in Clause 11 to match up with the Government’s rhetoric. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 140 withdrawn. Amendments 141 to 143 not moved. Amendment 144 Moved by