---

Digital Economy Bill [HL]

I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. The Government maintain that Clause 41 provides clarity about the division of responsibility between the video works authority and the video games authority. This is absolutely fundamental in creating a seamless system that delivers the policy intention, subscribed to by all the parts of the House, to adopt the Pan-European Games Information system of classification for video games. The clause balances this clarity with the necessary degree of flexibility to deal with certain types of video games and the manner in which some games are now supplied with films. This flexibility is important to ensure that we have a clear, sensible and effective system that actually works on the ground. The overriding principle is that the video games authority is responsible for determining the classifications of video games. However, following detailed discussions with the BBFC and the VSC, and in order to allow a degree of flexibility in the system that will make practical sense to everyone, the Bill allows the video games authority to allocate to the video works authority a particular class of video game, such as R18—which the noble Baroness described accurately in her speech—or a game that is to be supplied in a particular way, such as the Blu-ray discs. This means that the Bill already allows what the noble Lord is seeking to achieve with Amendment 248. We do not need to say anything more in the legislation. Clause 41 achieves what is required in a neat, clear and helpful manner, without unnecessary complication or definition. I am at one with the noble Lord in his efforts with the amendment to achieve those aims: I am merely indicating that they have been achieved already. I emphasise that the Secretary of State can issue guidance. Both the BBFC and the video games authority must pay attention to that guidance. I assure noble Lords, because I am responsive to the concerns expressed in several parts of the House, that the Government will include specific guidance that R18 video games should be allocated across to the BBFC, underpinning the agreement that we already have in place and in practice. I give the assurance that the Government will include that in guidance. Therefore I hope that noble Lords will feel that they have pressed the Government on these issues, that we are fully cognisant and aware of the anxieties, and that the Bill as it stands, and the way in which it is intended that it should be implemented, meets their anxieties and concerns, so that they will not press their amendments.