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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, very quickly, I, too, support this. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, made a very valid point. Things of this complexity should not just be suddenly presented here in Committee. Sometimes, even though we may not really disagree, we will appear to be confrontational because of positions we take on particular amendments on the Floor of the House. I certainly do not disagree with him in many respects but I may about some of the detail and the unintended consequences of some of the things that we are putting in to try to achieve a desirable outcome. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, hit the nail on the head—we should have done the educational campaign first. This amendment is about sending out a message, which is a good point. However, if you look at it, Clauses 4 to 9 are about sending out a message—sending out the letters. As the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, said, this is trying to do the education, but we are a bit late. Clauses 10 to 14 are the punitive bits—the cracking of the whip. Then we have the bit about how we divvy up the charges, and some administrative stuff. We are told by the Minister that all those clauses are about sending a message. That message is not a very kind message in the way that it has been phrased in this Bill, which we expect to become an Act. It would be much nicer to put this up front, so that people realise that there is a desirable purpose in this and that it is not a hostile Act the entire way through. I refer to the discussion of the previous three amendments, which were all about using an existing system of remedy which exists for the rights holders, and which is not to be removed from them. This is a very effective way of dealing with serious offenders. Take them to court—why not? We do not want to remove that from them. We understand from both front benches that we need to leave this remedy in the Bill. If we are going to leave this remedy for a crackdown on serious offenders through the civil courts, you start to wonder, "Why do we need this new method?". Maybe we should use the existing system, as promoted by ACS:Law and others, and carry it through to prosecution. This sounds a bit illogical, I am afraid, and it may sound slightly muddled, but it is not. What message are we are trying to get out? At the moment, it is very muddled. On the one hand, we are leaving in place all the existing remedies for serious offenders, which could be used right now, and now we are putting a whole lot of things in—to frighten minor offenders, I presume—because they are presumably not necessary for major offenders. I therefore think that this clause is essential to explain why we are doing it, and what we are really trying to do for the future. Without it, this Bill, to be honest, will be ridiculed.