My Lords, along with a number of other noble Lords, I have several amendments in this group to which I would like to speak.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has reminded the Committee that the origin of some of this was in the debates on the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill. One of the things we debated at some length was how far the IPO had a role to protect and promote the interests of intellectual property owners. With respect to my noble friend, we had an answer that was half dusty and half satisfactory. The dusty point was that
he was not going to accept that the IPO should have that role and that was why we proposed having a director-general.
I am intrigued to see that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has tabled what looks like exactly the same amendment as my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and I tabled on that Bill.