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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, since Committee the Minister has been kind enough to write to a number of us about the matters raised by the RUSI report into the resilience of the communications networks, particularly first emergency responders and local authorities. The report pointed out many of the gaps. The Minister said in his letter that those were largely organisational gaps, but when I went back to the report I saw that the issue is a bit more far-reaching than that. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, for raising this issue, because I am little bit shocked that, as we worked our way through the Climate Change Bill in this House, we did not question the role of communications networks. It seems that, of all the statutory undertakers, those in charge of communications are right at the front line. I, too, hope that the Government will be able to do more than say that they will put this back until they have something to transpose from the directive, because between now and then there are likely to be, on the basis of the last year or two, many more floods and many more weather emergencies. Nobody has better experience of these things, I would suggest, than the noble Baroness, who was of course in charge of the Environment Agency as the water was rising up towards that electricity substation. She has particular experience of exactly how fast these things can happen.