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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, perhaps I may add to what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has just said, because I basically agree with just about everything he said. I have been enormously influenced during the Bill’s passage by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and by several things that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has said. I want to make a point that is, certainly to me, terribly important. I have learnt one thing during the Bill’s passage—the absolute indispensability of pre-legislative scrutiny. The Bill has suffered grievously from not having been scrutinised by a group of the entire Chamber. I have been privileged to chair two pre-legislative scrutiny committees. What actually happens is that a relatively small group of people from all sides of the House sits down, goes through the evidence and interrogates it. It finds the areas on which it agrees and then offers solutions to the Government that we hope not only are palatable but move the process on. One of the more dispiriting features of the seven days that we spent in Committee was how much of the time was spent arguing over and discussing things that could so easily have been dealt with by a small group of peers from all parts of the House. If there is one great lesson to take away, it is that the House should not accept Bills like this without provision for pre-legislative scrutiny. In that sense, I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. What will end up leaving this Chamber—probably lacking Clause 17, which in many respects is a pity, although I understand the objections to it—and going to the Commons is a Bill that none of us is particularly proud of. It will be a spatchcock that does part of the work it was intended to do but not all of it. I am absolutely convinced that, within the next two or three years, there will be another Bill before this House which will be created to deal with the deficiencies of the present Bill.