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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support these amendments in general, as I do the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising. If we do not know whether what we are doing is working, we do not know whether we should continue down that route. I do not know whether the word "current" in Amendment 69 would limit the assessment too much and provide an excuse to say, "We can’t keep up to date. It has to be a year behind". However, I think that "lawful" in Amendment 69 is probably more legally correct than "legal" in Amendment 68. I believe that we should carry one of the two amendments and the wording can be tidied up at Third Reading. If the Government are not willing to accept the amendments, we should divide on them. I can see that when these reports come out it will be all too easy for Ofcom, which is trying to produce the reports, to say, "Well, we don’t have the time or the resources. We can’t do that bit of it", and just to do one part of the report. In the future, we cannot make valid judgments of the efficacy of all these laws that we are passing if we cannot see the balanced argument. Therefore, I strongly support the amendments.