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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, my noble friend’s and my amendments in this group suggest other measures that could usefully be included in progress reports to assess the success or failure of the procedures that we have just debated. Amendments 68 and 69 focus on legitimate access to copyright material. During these debates, it has sometimes felt as though the Government and some parts of the industry see all internet usage as potentially harmful. We do not want to attempt to limit legitimate use of the internet. From a practical point of view, I do not think that a progress report that gives a measurement of unlawful use of the internet under new paragraph (a) will be very useful without a comparison with lawful use. Similarly, I do not see how new paragraph (b) can be useful without an assessment of how many users are availing themselves of these steps. I should like to clarify whether the progress reports made under this new section will cover technical measures, should they ever be imposed. It would seem likely that they would, given the wide scope laid out in subsection (1). If that is the case, should not the possibility be specifically referenced? I appreciate that I have not tabled an amendment to this effect, but would the Minister not consider it useful for there to be a requirement in subsection (4) specifically to cover the impact of technical measures? An assessment of how many technical measures have been imposed and how many subscribers they are covering would be valuable information.