---

Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I rise early to see whether I can assist the Committee with some helpful comments. On the face of it, this is not an unreasonable thing to require the Secretary of State to do. It would ensure that an assessment of steps by Ofcom would have to be taken into account by the Secretary of State, as well as whatever else seems most pertinent to him when deciding on the appropriateness of requiring technical obligations to be imposed. In practice, the Secretary of State is always likely to want to have had a report from Ofcom before making such an order, and therefore we are willing to agree to consider this change. However I do not think we should restrict the Secretary of State to taking into account only an Ofcom assessment of technical obligations, or the steps taken by Ofcom to prepare for them, as proposed in Amendment 176. I do not think that it would be at all sensible to circumscribe the Secretary of State in this way. Inevitably—I think the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, acknowledged this in his contribution—there are going to be wider societal or macro-economic factors or, for example, developments in Europe, that a Secretary of State is going to want to take into account. It is right and proper that he should do so. I hope that the Committee will recognise that Ofcom would not welcome being the sole source of advice which the Secretary of State has to take into account. In the light of my assurance that we shall certainly take away Amendment 175 and agree positively to consider it, and with my subsequent explanation, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.