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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

Exactly. My noble friend the Minister says that education is the first part of this Bill. I have said the Government have made improvements to the first part of the Bill—roughly Clauses 4 to 7—but it is still the first stage of an enforcement process. The first letter a subscriber gets is, "It appears that an infringement has taken place". That is not education. It may turn out that he will learn something from it, but it is not education. It is a threat. The problem with this approach is that it is a serious threat. Part of the music industry and other industries have behaved in a gung-ho way: they have the Government and indeed the Opposition on side to wipe out this problem by getting the ISPs to do it for them. It would have been far better for all concerned, including consumers, if we had had a proper education process up front, as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, has said. If we had explained the situation and given support and marketing to the lawful process, we might have persuaded some of the lawful processes to market themselves rather more effectively. I do not suggest that we go down the road that President Sarkozy now appears to be going down. Recognising that his approach, which is similar to this one, ain't going to work, he has now decided to subsidise the purchase of hardware in terms of CDs and DVDs at some expense to the French taxpayer. I am not suggesting we do the same here. But at least he has recognised that simply intervening on the sanctions side will not work. This is a graduated approach, but we should first inform and educate. Next you should start warning people and then take action with the residual problem. The main thing is to develop lawful, accessible, cheap, understandable, well-known forms of lawful alternatives. They are there. Everybody is right to say that they are already there, but they need developing and they need to be made more attractive and more automatic. They are getting better. My noble friend said that people who have recourse to unlawful file sharing take the easiest approach, but at least in some areas some of these lawful processes are now becoming the easiest way to do it. That is exactly what we want to develop and what the Government should have been doing. If the Government are not prepared to accept the amendment, I shall return to it or it should be considered in another place. It was a whole new presentation of the Government’s approach. At the moment, the Government may think that they are being very mild, but out there is a big stick on behalf of vested interests. That will not endear them to the population nor will it endear the population to the creative industries that we are hoping to stimulate as a result of this. I will withdraw the amendment tonight because I do not think anybody wants a vote, but I have received sufficient support to return to it at a later stage or in another place. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 17 withdrawn. Clause 4 : Obligation to notify subscribers of reported infringements Amendment 18 Clause 4 : Obligation to notify subscribers of reported infringements Amendment 18 Moved by