Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Jim Dowd and Pete Wishart

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I do not know whether I should break out into song and wish a belated happy birthday to the hon. Members for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) and for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), or declare my favourite band. Whenever the hon. Member for Cardiff West and I appear in the Chamber together, I always try to plug MP4, because we comprise half the band. We will conclude our world tour of UK party conferences this Saturday, which is worth noting as a landmark occasion.

I agree with and endorse what the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee said about the value of copyright to our creative industries. It is the very essence of what underpins our success and probably makes the UK the leader in so many sectors throughout the world, from music, drama and film to Premier League football. It is the one thing that makes sure that we can continue to deliver that immense conveyor belt of talent that excels right around the world.

We muck about with copyright at our peril and must tread carefully with regard to copyright exceptions. We have to know exactly what we are doing, which is why impact assessments are vital and why the Minister’s confused response alarms me and is of concern. We have to know what the exact impact will be on all the sectors and everybody involved in the creative industries, and listen carefully to what they have to say.

I welcome the amendment, but only half-heartedly. For once, the Government have listened to representatives from the creative industries, who have not received a particularly good welcome from them over the past few years. They feel undervalued and sense that their concerns, which they make eloquently to the Government, are ignored and that, if they are listened to, it is in a half-hearted way.

The issue of copyright exceptions is important. We have had the Hargreaves report, the Government’s response to it and the Intellectual Property Office’s examination of how the report’s recommendations could be implemented. I am sure that the Minister will be thrilled to know that he is about to receive the report by the all-party group on intellectual property, of which I and the hon. Members for Maldon and for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) are members. It will suggest various ways in which IP policy could be better formulated across Government and across Departments, and suggest the need for a real champion of IP copyright, because that is what is missing.

We need a proper investigation and an impact assessment. The assumptions that underpin a number of the Hargreaves recommendations are nonsense. The examples that caught our eye related to copyright exceptions, such as the assertion that an exception for format shifting would be worth £2 billion to the UK economy. The funniest assumption was the claim that an exception for parody of intellectual property could increase the UK economy by £600,000. Those assumptions were challenged, but they were asserted by the IPO without any real foundation. That is why this House has properly to consider copyright exceptions. If we do not, we will be left with that sort of nonsense. We have to make sure that that does not happen again.

I join others in calling on the Minister to listen to the concerns that the creative industries still have about the potential bundling together of proposals in secondary legislation. The Rolls-Royce model is primary legislation, whereby Members of Parliament can come to the House to have a proper debate and kickabout on proposals for copyright exceptions. If that is not to happen, the Minister must provide a better assurance that there will be separate pieces of secondary, delegated legislation, with full impact assessments, so that we can understand the impact that any further copyright exceptions will have on all the relevant sectors.

[Jim Dowd]

To reinforce that point, the wooliness of the Minister’s response, if it is left like that this evening, will have created an awful lot of work for his colleagues at the other end of the building. There are people down there who know better than most Members of this House precisely what the Government’s lack of decision—or else their attempt to hide what they are doing—really means.

Intellectual Property

Debate between Jim Dowd and Pete Wishart

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding me of that. I must ensure that I book accommodation for my trip to Salford, which I am looking forward to.

It is worth reminding the Chamber of the contribution that the intellectual property-supported industry makes to the general economy. It is massive. Around 8% of our gross domestic product is predicated on the intellectual property-supported industry, and it is responsible for around 2.8 million jobs. As the hon. Gentleman’s intervention cleverly but not discreetly emphasised, my major interest is music. As well as the fantastic folk awards, the BRIT awards will take place in the next couple of weeks, when we will celebrate again that, outwith the United States, the United Kingdom is the second largest exporter of music worldwide. It is a huge, successful and fantastic industry, which has gone from strength to strength. Last year, we saw incredible success for UK artists, particularly in the US market.

Not just music is involved; every part of the creative range and everything that we do in this country produces a fantastic conveyor belt of imagination and talent, and we have been able to ensure that it has been successful. We have been able to do that mainly because we have fantastic imagination, talent and creativity within the UK. Moreover, we have built up a world-class infrastructure—the sector or the industry—that has been able to ensure that emerging talent has been identified, supported and mentored. We have ensured that that talent has been able to come through, and that is predicated on the real and important issue that those who have been prepared to invest in their talent have been rewarded for their contribution in bringing that talent through.

We must do nothing to threaten that incredible conveyor belt of talent, support and nurturing. However, we are beginning to observe a few danger signs. There are a few clouds on the horizon that are worth examining, because the threat comes from an unusual place. That threat and the clouds in the distance are being brought forward by the Government in the drift of some of their thinking and some of their policies. We must ensure that the industry continues to be supported. I have spoken in such debates for 10 years. I think that I have managed to speak in all debates on intellectual property and creative industries. I have never known a time when those who speak on behalf of the sector and all the different disciplines in the creative economy have felt that they have been undervalued and misunderstood and that their voice is not being heard.

There is a feeling in the sector of being under siege because of the tone and drift of the Government’s thinking about how we look at our creative economy. There is an emerging view that the Government might even be devaluing our whole attitude towards intellectual property. There is a sneaking suspicion—I have heard this from people throughout Europe—that the Government might be approaching something that could be described as anti-copyright. That is not a good place to be. It is not where we want to be if we want to grow this remarkable sector. The Government must hand out an olive branch to those who speak on behalf of the industry and the sector and try to get some of the issues resolved now.

There is also a feeling that that is happening because of the work of the Intellectual Property Office. Its very name suggests that it is about enabling and supporting intellectual property. One would think that that is what it is for, and that that would be its sole and exclusive responsibility. Some of the new thinking about devaluing intellectual property, and the drift and concern about copyright seem to come from within the IPO. We must be wary of that, because we might be creating an office that is supposed to support a particular sector, but instead is becoming a bureaucratic front to devalue the people whom it is supposed to support. We must get to grips with that.

The emerging view is that the Government are more interested in pursuing the rights of those who live off the content of others, and who perhaps abuse it, rather than those who produce it in the first place. That view contends that the artist, the creator and those who are prepared to invest in a talent have become a massive inconvenience and that they are an afterthought and must be grudgingly accommodated and managed. The idea that the inventor or creator is the owner of important intellectual property rights is barely recognised. Whatever links they want to assert must be collectivised for the greater good.

I appeal to the Government to get a grip on the issue, to take charge of it and to prevent the drift because it is not helpful. They must exercise and demonstrate effective political control. They have allowed us to drift over the past few years, and there has not been the leadership that this important sector—8% of GDP—requires. We have a haphazard arrangement, which is not in the interest of the whole sector. The IPO resides in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The creative industries, the artists and the inventors are managed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

We have a Minister who is not accountable to the elected House of Commons; she is a member of the House of Lords. This is my second debate on intellectual property and these issues. I gave evidence to the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills, but I have not even had a meeting with that Minister, such is her accountability to elected Members of Parliament. I respectfully suggest how to resolve the matter. We need one dedicated Minister of State in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, where we could have the IPO and the artists, creators and the whole sector. Putting the IPO within that Department might lead to better understanding and more sympathy for the people whom it is nominally and notionally there to serve. A Minister of State who oversees the whole digital economy could pick up issues such as intellectual property, supporting artists and major legislation such as the Digital Economy Act 2010.

What we have now is totally unsatisfactory. There is no effective political control, and no leadership is given to the IPO, so it has started to develop its own agenda and come up with the notion that copyright and intellectual property must be constrained for the benefit of users. Close attention at ministerial level has not been paid to such issues over the past few years, and that has created a vacuum that has been occupied—possibly rightly—by the IPO, which has come on board and decided that such matters are its concern. The Minister is relatively new to these issues, but I urge him to get a grip and take control. Government agencies advise; Ministers decide. The Intellectual Property Office may sound like a grand organisation, but it is an instrument of government and should be subject to ministerial control and guidance.

When industries supported by intellectual property rights and those who speak for the sector come to Whitehall to put their case to Ministers, they are dismissed almost arrogantly. Their evidence, which at times the Government have charged them to produce, is dismissed as what Ian Hargreaves called “lobbynomics.” What a ridiculous thing to say to an industry and sector that try to produce work on behalf of the Government so that it is better understood. People are also told, in a patronising and sneering manner, that they do not understand the business environment in which they are working.

Those who now have the Government’s ear are not particularly helpful. Some have become self-serving protectionists and are telling the Government their views. Self-appointed digital rights champions seem to rule the roost when informing Government opinion, and everything that the Government do is predicated on the support for and desire to please massive multi-billion dollar west-coast United States companies such as Google.

I do not know why Google has the Government’s ear, but I do not contend that it has a particular lobbying influence inside No. 10. I do not even suggest that Steve Hilton, the special policy adviser, has a special relationship with Google. I do not suggest such things or contend them today. For some reason, however, Google has the ear of the Government, and it was no surprise that, when Ian Hargreaves initiated his review, many people called it the Google review.

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

If the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to allege such things today, may I volunteer to do it for him?

[Pete Wishart]

I would never suggest that there is a special relationship between No. 10 and certain key individuals in a company called Google, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reasserting the fact that I do not allege that today.

Intellectual Property (Hargreaves Report)

Debate between Jim Dowd and Pete Wishart

Thursday 7th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Pete Wishart]

I have seen the early-day motion to which I think the right hon. Gentleman is referring; it was kicking around just now. I have certainly received correspondence on the issue. That seems to be one of the great misconceptions about the DEA. People are always referring to disconnection, but nowhere in the DEA is there any mention of disconnection. If any technical measure were to be enforced, as he knows, numerous measures would have to be agreed by Government and Ofcom before anything like that could be considered. What would happen is that people would receive a polite letter asking them to stop taking music for nothing and directing them towards legal sites. I am glad that he mentioned the subject.

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Before the hon. Gentleman moves away from the point about illegal downloading, has he seen today’s BBC report showing that the problem not only persists but continues to grow year on year? Does he agree that regardless of all the sophisticated arguments that can be advanced, it is nothing short of theft?

[Pete Wishart]

I did see the BBC piece. It was done for “Newsbeat”, and it showed the effect of illegal downloading on the film industry. It is not just film studios but people who work in the film industry—carpenters, caterers and all the other ancillary staff—who are taking a direct hit to their ability to earn a living working in the creative industry. The piece was a great example of the impact on the creative industries of the scourge of illegal downloading, and it shows why the Government must get their finger out and start dealing with the problem, using the measures agreed in the DEA.

When will the Government’s response be published? We were promised a response before the recess, which is now only 10 short days away. I presume that we will not get a response to the Hargreaves report before the recess, so when will it be published? What is it likely to include? Will the Government ensure that a thorough cost-benefit analysis is undertaken by whomever they appoint to study the issue? Will they ensure that existing activity is properly assessed? How will the Government ensure that IP laws remain protected in the light of changes to consumer law and the proposed organisational change to consumer protection?

If we want a successful and vibrant creative sector, IP has to be respected and valued, and not seen as something that people have the right to access for free just because technology enables them to do so. We cannot continue to give away our great recorded works for nothing, threaten our film industry, compromise our publishing houses, and leave our artists and creators without reward and protection, just so that some people can illegally take their work for nothing. Our creative industry is one of the most dynamic parts of the economy and the provider of hundreds of thousands of jobs. We have not done too badly so far with our IP and copyright laws, and nothing must be done to compromise our success and creativity. The Government have it in their power to ensure that the UK can become the world hub for creative industries. It is now time to stop the reviews and get on with the work.