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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, grouped with these sensible amendments, I have tabled alternative Amendment 218. It tries to achieve exactly the same purpose for exactly the same reasons. I do not mind which amendment is supported. Such a measure may be useful because it has to be remembered that the purpose of Clause 18 is to enable the Government to put in a manager under Clause 19; that is a drastic step to take. These are the trigger arrangements, and it is only reasonable that the registry has some control over what has gone wrong, because one could put in a manager who might do no better. It does not really matter, because if you do not have the power to do anything about whatever the issue is, you will need fast-track legislation to cure the problem—as we discussed previously. It might have been better to us a Henry VIII power here, rather than something else. Inserting an amendment with the word "reasonable" would ensure proportionality and reassure people. The effect would be exactly the same in the end. If the registry is misbehaving or not being competent, and a manager could do the job better, the Government would still have a reserve power to put in a manager under Clause 19. On the previous matter, I wish to check something. The country code ".tv" is the top-level domain of Tuvalu. That country has been sensible because it spotted a huge opportunity and has a deal with VeriSign which markets the code for other purposes. The country gets a large slice of money, because it receives the royalties. This is an idea for the Government if they could grab the right domain. On top of that, Tuvalu has reserved ".gov.tv" for its own use. There are a lot of business ideas that the Government could use instead of taxing us.