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Digital Economy Bill [Lords]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is very important that the industry does that and develops an effective education campaign. In fact, I have seen some interesting proposals to do that, which I hope will go forward. However, we need legislation as well. The House needs to be clear that we cannot make headway on this issue unless we have legislation along the lines proposed. Stepping back from the detail of the amendments, let me make a couple of points. Does anything really need to be done to address online copyright infringement? A subsidiary question might be: is legislation the right vehicle to do so? In a number of the speeches that we have heard, hon. Members have expressed misgivings about some aspects of the Bill. I am thinking, for example, of what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Derek Wyatt), who, in his speech on Second Reading yesterday, strongly supported the need to support the creative industries in the Bill. However, my sense is that there is a pretty broad acceptance across the House that we are talking about a serious matter, that it needs to be addressed and that legislation is appropriate for addressing it. There is certainly significant harm to our creative industries resulting from the current level of online copyright infringement. That harm is estimated in the impact assessment for the Bill at £400 million for music, film and TV. Others have come up with a larger figure for the content industries more widely. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East talked about the games industry, which is certainly affected by online copyright infringement. The figure that the International Chamber of Commerce estimated for the scale of the problem is £1 billion, or perhaps more, so we are talking about a serious problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) suggested that we are taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but it is not a nut; it is a serious problem that needs to be addressed.