---

Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, there is an underlying problem here. The powers that the Secretary of State is claiming are necessary to deal with the problems connected with our creative industries are incompatible—or sit uncomfortably, whichever way you want to look at it—with a parliamentary democracy. I am sure that he did not mean to do it, but to my mind the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, argued strongly in favour of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, because if things move so quickly, the 90-day window asked for by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, will be meaningless. It will all have happened. If it is all going to happen anyway, why are we giving these extraordinary powers to the Secretary of State and not retaining Parliament as the ultimate arbiter of what happens? We have had a lot of comment today on how the creative industries are being wrecked. The games industry grosses more than the cinema industry now. I said to the managing director of Nintendo, which after all is one of the biggest games things in the world, "What are your views on illegal activities?" I was privileged—I got number one interpreter, I could have had number one, two, three or five but I got number one for this important question. He said, "Could you do something about Spain and China?" I did not like to tell him that my influence in the United Kingdom is pretty abysmal, but when you get to China it is absolutely sub-zero. However, they said that because it is illegal in these countries and we are putting in provisions like these, they sell enough to make the whole thing work. Therefore, from his point of view—I am not saying whether he was right or wrong—he was not worried. As my noble friend Lord Lucas said, ultimately the only thing that will stop all this is the right goods being supplied at the right price, so that there is no incentive to get hold of illegal copies and illegal things. I am told that it will not stop those who try to get the new movie out, because for them the game is to get it first. It is not commercial: the fun is to get it first. I am told that if you go to screenings—the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, will know this much better than I do—for previews of films for BAFTA or something like that, there are people standing in the room with infrared detectors to see whether anybody is filming and to try and stop this game from happening. It may be that we are seeing an evolution. Far be it from me to say, but apparently young people now go and visit the same film four or five times. It is an outing, and that is what gives this impetus to films such as "Avatar" which are getting these huge grosses: people go and it is their form of fun.