Digital Economy Bill

Lord Lester of Herne Hill Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 5th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I add my great thanks to the Minister, on behalf of all the people I was talking to, for his intelligent and sensitive handling of the rather difficult, tortuous, twisting turns which were confusing what we saw as the perceived prime purpose of Part 3. I think we got there and have something that is going to be workable. I just hope that the regulator, when it gets operational, will find that what is coming out of the British Standards Institution PAS 1296 will be helpful in trying to make sure that age verification works in protecting children from accessing all the adult content online, which was the only bit that I was dealing with. Thank you very much indeed.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I suspect that this is au revoir and not adieu to the Bill, if one is still allowed to use French in this House. I thank the Minister for putting up with endless conversations with me about statutory underpinning or something instead. I thank him for arranging for me to see the Culture Secretary, which I look forward to doing if she is free to do so before the Bill comes back. I make it clear that I am agnostic about how to achieve the protection of the BBC’s independence and viability—whether in the charter, in statutory underpinning or in undertakings given by Ministers. My difficulty at the moment is that we have still not had those undertakings, but I look forward to future debates.

Bill passed and returned to the Commons with amendments.