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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

The previous group of amendments went sufficiently fast for me not to intervene. My noble friend the Minister will be pleased that I strongly supported his amendments in that group: they have improved Clause 11. However, it probably needs a little more improvement and Amendment 83 addresses one crucial issue. I am assuming that the Government will accept Amendment 81 in that it follows the same logic as Amendment 74 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, which my noble friend has just accepted. In other words, we need to make it clear that this refers to online copy infringement and not the rather more broad possibilities suggested in the original version of Clause 11. Clause 11 is a key hinge clause in the area of technical measures. I fully expect the Minister simply to accept that amendment. I suspect that there may be difficulties with Amendment 83. However, it is my way of doing something about which I think others have been concerned and on which we have had widespread debates. The whole purpose of this Bill should be to move the bulk of what is currently unlawful file-sharing on to legal measures, which was referred to in our discussion on the group before last. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, referred to it and the 12-month delay allows some time to see if the new system settles in. In order for the educational process to have full effect, I had thought that we needed a clear timescale from the passage of this Bill to the point where we could move to the technical measures. Although the Bill has some built-in delays in terms of time for drawing up the code et cetera, which would probably amount to about 18 months from that passage, I felt that we needed a bit longer than that. However, rather than designate a particular timescale, it seemed sensible to bring this back to the House. We will be moving from the notification and the warning phase, and we will have some appreciation of other, I hope, more positive forms of educational activity and some innovative changes in terms of the options that will be available to consumers for more lawful access to copyright material. It therefore is quite a step to move from here to the technical measures. I do not know how long will be required to be able to make a proper assessment of the need for that, even within the Government’s terms and certainly within the terms from which I am approaching this. The best bet would be, rather than to have a specific timescale, to bring it back to Parliament. Amendment 83, in effect, requires the Secretary of State to lay a draft order here and an explanatory document as to why we are moving to the next stage and subject it to, in effect, the super-affirmative resolution. There may be other procedures which will achieve the same thing, but it is important for Parliament, at this stage in the process, even were the subsequent clauses to be amended more to my liking, to consider this step before we move to it. I therefore think that something like Clause 83 ought to be acceptable to Parliament. The narrowing of the effect of Clause 11 to online copyright infringement helps in alleviating that which Amendment 84 is intended to address. The clause states: ""The order may also specify … the criteria for taking the technical measure concerned against a subscriber"." That is a potentially wide-ranging basis, which is not confined to the peer-to-peer file-sharing that the procedure is primarily about. It has been ameliorated by the Government’s amendments and acceptance of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley. Nevertheless, it would be better if the paragraph were not there. I hope that the Government will accept Amendment 81 and at least take into account the arguments for Amendment 83. I beg to move.