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UK Software Industry

We do indeed, but the hon. Gentleman raised the issue initially—specifically in connection with the Labour party and Labour Prime Ministers. I thought it only fair to illuminate the debate by highlighting the announcements that were made only last week. When examining issues such as intellectual property, which is extremely important and does need to be examined, we need to be conscious of not only freedom of expression and access to information, which are of course vital and needed to make our nation competitive, but the rights of those who create original material, who are often the small people in all this and do not have access to Prime Ministers, and sometimes have difficulty gaining access to MPs. Their rights concerning their intellectual property need to be retained. I shall therefore be watching the review with great interest. It is important that there is broad input into the review and I encourage anyone who has interest in this area to contribute. We are at a positive stage for the UK software industry. We have great talent, great innovation and great originality. My contention is that much of that arises from the positive intellectual atmosphere that has been fostered generally in the UK, and specifically in our universities. I am worried that that atmosphere might disappear because of the environment in which we operate.