My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara in his proposal that the Government should publish a document of some sort setting out their thinking in relation to the suite of exceptions that they propose to legislate for. It will not be satisfactory if the first opportunity that Parliament has to consider these exceptions is in the highly constrained circumstances in which we consider unamendable orders, in fairly brief time, in Committee.
It would be very helpful if the Government would lay out their thinking in a report and better still—essential, I would suggest—if Parliament had the opportunity to debate that report, so that when we come to consider the specific orders and enact legislation on them, we do so in the context of a proper understanding of the thinking and strategic purpose of the Government. The Government have some very delicate and difficult judgments to make, exception by exception, and Parliament needs to take responsible decisions. Parliament will be better educated, and better placed to make appropriate judgments on this, if we have the opportunity to go through the preliminary stage that my noble friend suggested. The report need not be quite as ambitious as the one that he proposed in his amendment, which would set out,
“the government’s long term plans for the future of intellectual property in the United Kingdom”.
That could be quite a bulky document. However, if the report is focused on the issues raised in the exceptions for which the Government are minded to legislate, it would be very helpful to Parliament and to others as well.