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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I hope the Committee will forgive me if I do not speak to Amendment 181, as it was not moved. I am very happy to speak to Amendment 182, which is very interesting, and we can see the logic of what it proposes. However, while I suspect that in practice we will look at time limits, or at least review the continuing relevance and necessity of the measures, we do not think that it would be a good idea to set this in stone in the legislation. A shorter period may be preferable, and, while that would not be precluded by the amendment, it is inevitable that a time limit that is set in legislation becomes the default setting. Moreover, while the idea of requiring an assessment from Ofcom to be laid before Parliament is attractive—I am sure that we would all endorse basing decisions on evidence—we should not underestimate the resource that such an assessment would require. Ofcom would quite rightly regard it as a major task, and the cost, which would be borne by members of the industry, could be considerable. The Committee will not be surprised to hear that I also do not agree that the Secretary of State’s ability to renew any such time-limited application of technical obligations should be on the basis of a recommendation from Ofcom, even though we highly regard that organisation. In the same way that we do not think it is right to restrict the initial decision to an assessment by Ofcom, we do not think that it should apply here. In practice, the view of the regulator will have force, but it should not be the sole arbiter of whether technical measures are needed, and I doubt very much whether Ofcom would wish to be put in that position. On balance, I hope that the noble Lord will agree that what I have said is reasonable and will withdraw his amendment.