My Lords, this group of amendments all relate to the proposed reporting duty placed on the Secretary of State in Clause 20 in relation to the creative industries. We welcome this proposal but the amendments, taken collectively, do two things: they build on the proposals in the Bill and they offer some alternatives for the focus of the reports that are to be made to Parliament.
Your Lordships will recall that the seeds of this debate are to be found in the discussions held on the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill last Session, in particular the amendments put down to the Bill in Committee by the noble Lords, Lord Jenkin of Roding and Lord Clement-Jones, and others, which led the Minister to convene various meetings and, after discussion, to agree to introduce this proposal. Discussions of this type always make for better legislation, do they not? However, rereading the debate reminds me that then, as now, our aspirations were for a rather more expansive report than is currently proposed.
Like the Government, our amendments start from the position that IP is a hugely important component of this country’s economy. As the letter sent to the Times last March signed by members of the Creative Coalition Campaign said:
“Copyright is the central intellectual property right that underpins the creative and knowledge economy. Films, music, games, books, could not get made in their present quantity and quality without a robust system of copyright. It provides the legal foundation for the ability of companies to license or sell works, and to invest and to innovate”.
As we heard during the discussion of the ERR Bill, IP is at the heart of our economic success in this sector. The creative industries support around 1.5 million
jobs and create more than £36 billion annually to UK GVA, calculated by the DCMS creative industries group. As a result of our belief in the importance of the creative industries, we believe that the annual report should not be limited, as the Government propose, to a view from the IPO, interesting though that undoubtedly would be. Surely the effect of the annual report should be a much broader review of the state of the copyright industries in the United Kingdom. The test is whether such a report will provide sufficient material to provide a discussion of how we are doing as a nation. It is not sufficient merely to hear how the IPO is doing in relation to its role of balancing the interests of intellectual property holders with the wider interests that the public may have in the extensive benefit that can be received from the early dissemination of information, knowledge and material.
In our view, it will be necessary for the annual report to cover plans for changes to legislation relating to IP and copyright; details of the expected impact on job creation; progress in supporting innovation; the impact of policy on economic growth more generally in the United Kingdom; engagement with other related government departments; engagement with stakeholders and details of lobbyists who have been in contact with the IPO; information concerning consumer behaviour and habits regarding the use of and access to copyright-infringing material and the subsequent economic impact; information containing manipulation of the internet search market; the impact of voluntary and non-voluntary action in tackling copyright infringement; and information about cross-border co-operation between our own jurisdiction and jurisdictions in the European Union and elsewhere. That is a long list, but it makes the point that what is needed is not so much a single point of view from the IPO but a broader conspectus of the current and future situation in this vital sector of our economy.
A report along the lines we are suggesting in these amendments will be an important first step in making our copyright industries a central part of our economic focus and ensuring that Parliament becomes better informed and can debate properly our progress. As my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport said on Report on the ERR Bill, welcoming the Minister’s commitment that an annual report should be published by the IPO:
“It may not reach the top of the bestseller lists, but it is right in principle that the public should have the opportunity to be informed about what the current issues are and what developments in policy are or may be”. —[Official Report, 6/3/13; col. 1597.]
I beg to move.