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Digital Economy Bill [Lords]

I am quite surprised that the hon. Lady asks an Opposition Front Bencher that question when her Government have hastily rushed through the Bill, which has not had sufficient time for scrutiny. We will work and make decisions in the best interests of the country and the creative industries and for the future of digital Britain, even if we are delivered a dog's dinner by the Government. I thought that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon), a former Culture, Media and Sport Minister, made a carefully considered contribution—I should not sound surprised, should I? He pointed out that it needs to be acknowledged that illegal downloading is property theft, no matter how one looks at it. He also said that new business models for content delivery and economic value added are already available and that they are technically possible, morally right and economically necessary. If only his concerns had been echoed by his Front-Bench colleagues, the Government might have taken the issues more seriously and brought the Bill before the House two or three weeks ago, so that we could have had time to contemplate them more closely. However, the hon. Gentleman's contribution was well informed, lucid and, in some aspects, other-worldly.