Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Lucas and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Monday 28th January 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, in everything that he said. It is important that the Government hold the ring on this. I take my views on copyright from Macaulay—it is a bargain between the producer and consumer. It is a bargain that needs to be kept balanced. A lot of good will flow from that balance. I would not have a director-general of copyright who looked after only the producers any more than I would have bank regulation that favoured only the banks. It is a matter of balance.

If we want to look at what goes wrong when the producers are in charge, we can look back at the history of the music industry and the way that it reacted to Napster. It made a mess of that. Rather than seizing on a new opportunity, it wanted to entrench its rights against the consumer. The industry was rolled over and a jolly good thing too.

Martin Mills is a hero of mine and I am delighted that he is defending copyright so strongly. I am sure that he is right in what he said, but it does not come down to a case of a lack of balance. We as a Government should feel able to enforce copyright strongly because the copyright owners are giving our people what they want—not trying to withhold stuff from them, fail to give them what they want or hold them to ransom, as was the case in that phase of the music industry.

I am entirely in favour of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. What is being done on the copyright hub is of immense importance. I am a copyright producer and user. In both aspects I would be a keen user of the hub. It is a great chance for Britain to be at the start of this and to put ourselves at the centre. If there is anything that we as legislators can do on this to keep the Government’s foot on the gas pedal and pressed firmly pressed to the floor, we should take that opportunity.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

I support Amendments 28C and 28D, and draw the Committee's attention to my entry in the Register of Lords’ Interests as a director of the Performing Rights Society.

I listened carefully to the two preceding speakers. It is difficult to argue against a balance. Who would be against a balance in favour of a bias? But to some extent the amendments that have been presented seek to correct an imbalance that already exists. That is the problem. We are not starting from a level playing field and building in an imbalance: there is a feeling that intellectual property is not protected. The amendments seek to correct an imbalance that the two previous speakers mentioned.

A lot has been said about the importance of this industry and I shall not go over that again, but I have two points. This is probably a pivotal time in that this industry is growing, it is new and it is fast moving. We saw what happened when the sector itself failed to respond to new technology in the appropriate way 10, 15 or 20 years ago, and I think that we have been picking up the pieces ever since. However, things have moved on since then. It is right that, as a society, the Government and the industry now look at what is happening and ask, “What do we need to do to make sure that we can guarantee the future of this industry, giving people new ways of accessing music design and all those things, but protect the copyright holders as well”. Getting that right is what this legislation is about. Given how fast things are moving, if we get it wrong now, we will find it very difficult to go back and get it right again in the future. This is a really important point. In relation to this amendment, perhaps I may say to the Minister that I do not think we can see how it goes and come back in 12 or 18 months’ time to reflect and then take things forward. Now is the time to act.

Education Bill

Debate between Lord Lucas and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I think that we should take the opportunity of the freedoms afforded by the move to an academy education to explore ways in which we can reach some parts of the education system that have been left fallow by the current rather less imaginative arrangements. I am thinking of some elements of home education that would benefit very much from having partial access to school. I am thinking of prisoners and Travellers and I am thinking of others who, for one reason or another, find it hard to attend a mainstream school on a standard basis.

There are such schools around. There are schools that are purely internet based. I am thinking of InterHigh, but there are certain others. There are schools in the state system, including one recent free school which is prepared to make arrangements with local home schools so that pupils can attend school some days a week. As far as I know there is nothing along these lines in prisons and young offender institutions, but it would be a very good innovation to start getting real schools into those institutions and allowing pupils to interact with real schooling rather than the cut-down version provided in prisons. Indeed it would allow them to continue being educated at the schools they have left behind, if that were appropriate.

Travellers could get into a situation where they could have a relationship with one school rather than having to switch school every time they move site. There is no reason why these people cannot be visited and looked after. The Travellers Education Service does a very good job and there is no reason why that cannot continue in terms of human contact. Allowing academies to explore ways in which they can look after these rather low volume and eccentric demands provides a way for small rural schools to flourish. That has been the motivation, by and large, for looking after home schoolers. It allows small rural schools to draw in a rather wider, larger number of people, to address a local need on a more widespread basis, and to allow village schools to continue, whereas otherwise they might not.

This is the sort of freedom that we should be encouraging and of which we should take advantage. We should never lose sight of the need for quality and proper control, but we should take advantage of the liberties we are looking at in terms of academies, to address these small but, none the less, interesting and worthwhile problems. I beg to move.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, this is an interesting amendment. It is certainly worthy of discussion and perhaps of support when the vote comes at some later point.

I have a couple of questions. Why only academies? I think that this is quite interesting for all schools and I am not sure why the amendment should restrict it to academies. My feeling is that there are initiatives like this already. I can think of an online school based in Birmingham, and I think in other areas, where children who have been excluded from school or just do not turn up—the school refuses to take them—are now educated online and are not based in school. If my memory serves me right, the legislation on Travellers means that children can stay on a school’s register even when they are travelling, and the Travellers Education Service would then aim to keep in touch with them.

My point is really that the beginnings of this are already happening, and this has been precipitated by the advances in information technology which have helped a great deal. I have no problem with a debate that furthers that. You need very strong boundaries so that children are not denied opportunities by somebody who does not have their best welfare at heart, and that would have to be discussed.

For the purpose of this debate, I invite the noble Lord, when he responds—or he may want to intervene now—to explain why he would restrict this to academies and not to any school in the system.

[Lord Lucas]

Just to fit in with the Bill.