Digital Britain

My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, I have enormous respect for his opinion and that of the organisation of which he is chair, which has engaged in depth and constructively on this question. I would be the first to acknowledge that this is a very difficult area. We have seen only this week the French Government’s position overruled by the French high court because it was judged to have gone too far down the path that he described. I would therefore describe our approach not as a watering-down but as an intelligent balance between the rights of the rights owners and those of the users, but I am afraid that I make no apology for where the Government have clearly come out. If we believe, as this Government firmly do, that the digital economy and the creative industries are central to our industrial capability, we must have a framework that protects intellectual property, allows it to be monetised and gives it standing in the world in which most of these transactions are going to be conducted. I entirely accept the noble Lord’s point that the operators and rights holders need to change their approach. The noble Lord opposite commented that we should welcome deals such as those announced by Virgin and Universal. If he were to ask his colleagues in another place who wrote the briefing note to do their research, they would tell him that we facilitated that arrangement, largely on the basis of what we are announcing today. It is an example of the sort of new business model that will come about. That requires clarity from the Government and the regulator on what will be allowed. We are not in a position not to have an opinion on this question.