---

Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I intend to speak to the 10 amendments tabled by the Government that deal with the information provided to subscribers in the notifications they receive, and the time limits associated with the notification process. I will also respond to the amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that cover the same ground. There was some interesting debate in Committee around the extent to which we should leave the detail of the process to the code, which would have the benefit of direct stakeholder input and consultation, and how much should be included in the Bill to ensure a minimum level of protection for subscribers. While the Government continue to see merit in leaving much detail to the code, we listened to the arguments made and the amendments laid by the Government are the result. The amendments we have put forward in the area of notifications and time limits do, I suggest, strike the right balance. They ensure that subscribers who receive a notification have the information that they need in order to appeal if necessary, that the first-level notification does not include information about potential technical measures, underlining the advisory nature of the letter—I hope that noble Lords found the illustrative letters helpful in that regard—and let the subscriber know what the position is generally as regards issues such as potential legal action by copyright owners. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, will also have noted that we have adopted his proposal of including provision for the name of the copyright owner making the report to be included in the notification, and I hope that as a result he will agree to withdraw his own amendment in this area. However, we do not agree with his Amendment 28, which proposes that marketing information may also be sent with notifications, not because we do not agree with it but because in our view there is nothing to stop such information being sent as it is—and in practice we would be rather surprised if it was not. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, can agree to withdraw that amendment also. Certainly, we wholeheartedly agree with the underlying point that copyright owners must step up and play their part by ensuring that there is plenty of attractive legitimate content available. These amendments also set limits on how long the process can take, with a maximum of a month allowed between the date evidence of the apparent infringement is gathered and the copyright infringement report being sent to the internet service provider, and the same period being set as the limit between a copyright infringement report being received and a notification being sent to a subscriber. That may be regarded by some in industry as challenging, but there is a balance to be struck here and we think this is only fair to subscribers—of course, we hope and expect the actual period to be considerably shorter than this. I hope noble Lords agree that this moves this part of the Bill in the right direction and recognise that we took account of a number of serious points that were made in the previous debate. I beg to move.