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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

I thank noble Lords for their contributions. On the comments of my noble friend Lord Howarth about the use of "diligent" instead of "reasonable", we believe that the emphasis is important. Although there will be consultations, our view is that there will be differences in different situations and we are trying to achieve a balance. My noble friend Lord Puttnam rightly reminded us that we must not forget the primary objective with which we started out. It is a noble and important objective, whereby we want to be able to release works that for years have not been able to see the light of day, while at the same time wanting to ensure that people conduct a "diligent" search. I rather like the emphasis of that word. We are not asking people to go on ad infinitum, but we want to feel assured that when these works are released there has been a diligent search. My noble friend Lord Howarth also asked who the Secretary of State will consult. My information is that the Secretary of State will consult widely across the same class of authors as those who are likely to be affected. That may not catch the specific authors but it will take into account their likely concerns. The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, asked about stored royalties; he has obviously remembered what happens when private detectives are asked to follow the money. Unfortunately, we cannot yet give a perfect answer on that. No decision has been taken yet, but there is a possibility of a fund for creators or something on those lines. There will be consultations in relation to that. I hope that we have addressed a wide range of concerns that were expressed in Committee. I would like to think that we have covered the waterfront, so to speak, and I hope in the light of that—