Debating the Digital Economy Bill

December 3, 2009 – 10:55 am

Yesterday’s Second Reading debate on the Digital Economy Bill produced some good speeches: the most telling critiques of the Bill were provided by Lord Lucas on the Conservative benches and Lord Whitty on the Labour benches.  The debate is well worth reading.  The first speaker on the Conservative side was former Cabinet minister, Lord Fowler, and I thought readers may enjoy his opening comments:

“Lord Fowler:  My Lords, I am responding first from this side but I should perhaps make it clear that the views I set out are mine alone and, probably to its relief-do not bind my party in any way. This is also not a bid to move from here to the Front Bench. I know this will come as an enormous disappointment to your Lordships, but I have already made more political comebacks than the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson.

Lord Mandelson: Impossible!

Lord Fowler: That is about right; on reflection, he has made rather more.

In any event, I was rather put in my place at the State Opening. The cameras roamed over those of us waiting and, I am told, for a moment or two dwelt on me, which noble Lords might think was rather good-and it might have been had the BBC commentator not chosen to add the remark:

“Ah, there’s a face from the past”.

So my first complaint about the Bill is that it does nothing to curb the excessive salaries paid to BBC commentators.”

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Digital Economy Bill

December 2, 2009 – 10:31 pm

Each session, some of the Bills promised in the Government’s programme begin their passage in the Lords.  Among those being introduced in the House this session is the Digital Economy Bill.  It had its Second Reading today.  The Bill itself is not massive in size – 49 clauses and three schedules – but it nonetheless covers a lot of ground: its long title encompasses eight separate purposes.   It has attracted a great deal of interest, not least because of the provisions covering online infringements of copyright.  I have been struck by the number of briefings I have received (mostly, and appropriately, by e-mail), well in excess of the number one normally receives.  It is clearly a Bill that is going to require a great deal of attention in committee.  I am just starting to examine it detail, so any comments from readers are welcome.

One aspect of the Bill that interests me is to do with its form.  Other than the final clauses that form the General clauses (45-49), every clause amends an earlier piece of legislation (mostly the Communications Act 2003), making it difficult to grasp fully the change made without going back to the earlier legislation.  It is another case where a Keeling-like schedule (showing the original legislation and how this Bill changes it) would doubtless be valuable.

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Rethink Politics

December 2, 2009 – 3:02 pm

I’ve just got back from the launch in the Commons of ‘Rethink Politics’ an initiative funded by the Electoral Commission, supported by Rethink, the Mental Health charity, aimed at encouraging partcipation in politics by people who have been affected by mental illness. One of the successes of the project has been to get 5000 service users onto the electoral register. Another has been to train and support people to get involved in local politics and to understand how to influence their local MPs, Health Trusts, planning legislation and so on. Many of the barriers to political engagement are practical ones, which could easily be addressed. For example, the practice of sharing data held on the electoral roll for commercial use such as credit checks deters many people with mental health problems from registering. Recently we have had good new legislation to allow psychiatric inpatients, except those detained under criminal forensic sections, to vote in general elections. Now we need to get them to use that vote.  I couldn’t help feeling while Adam Afriye, MP for Windsor, was doing his welcome to the Commons, that the same project would have been equally valuable to many other groups in society who feel excluded and who would gain confidence from getting involved in some similar  initiative.

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A pint is forever

December 1, 2009 – 11:18 pm

Back to work this week on my Select Committee, Merits of Statutory Instruments.   Our job is to scrutinise weekly the delegated legislation made under the authority of an Act (that is, the detailed stuff that makes the Act work) and see if any of the statutory instruments fail to achieve their objectives, or should be drawn to the attention of the House because they have exceptional policy implications or inappropriately implement European legislation or are otherwise defective.  We also look in general at the way these statutory instruments are made and communicated to those who are affected.  We study over 1000 of them each year, and friends who come to my home at the weekend are amazed to see the pile, several inches high, which is delivered each week for me to go through over the weekend.  There are about a dozen Lords on the committee and each of us brings to bear our individual expertise on the legislation. 

We have certainly had some successes.  We managed to delay Home Information Packs for a while, and were sorry not to have been able to persuade the government to drop the idea altogether.  We blocked the building of a mega casino in Manchester.  This week, we spotted that the Department for Transport has attempted to exempt domestic train services from some new duties contained in European rail passengers’ regulations - namely, about information to be provided to passengers, obligations in the case of cancellations and delays, security and complaints.  For once, the carrying out of some European law would be truly beneficial, so why should the Department fail to implement it?  We seek an explanation.

And some really good news.  A statutory instrument has ended the obligation to set a deadline after which we could no longer refer to imperial units.  We can now carry on indefinitely referring to miles,  yards, feet, pints of beer and milk!  This is so welcome to those of us educated before metric measurements and to all those who still think of babies in pounds and ounces and land in acres.  It takes a possible burden off business too.

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Getting noticed

November 28, 2009 – 6:42 pm

Thanks to ‘anonymous’ who contributed the following in a comment on the boingboing website at the end of last week: 

“Tangentially, you all might be interested in the ‘House of Lords’ blog – http://lordsoftheblog.net/. It is filled with thought-provoking commentary and insight about the bumpy but successful running of a parliamentary democracy. Raise your concerns there.”

As a result, we have had traffic from the site throughout the week, contributing to an increase in the daily readership.  It’s good to be noticed.

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