Intellectual Assets: Crime

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I think that the whole House will endorse the view that an economy such as ours depends crucially for its advance and future prosperity on its capacity to innovate and the intellectual capital on which that depends. Therefore, a central part of the Government’s strategy is very much concern not just with national security but with developing, with the private sector, a secure cyberplatform on which investment in this country from both domestic companies and companies abroad can be based.

[Lord Rosser]

Bearing in mind the increasing threat posed by the type of crime raised in this Question and the importance of developing still further links and levels of co-operation with other countries on this issue, can the Minister give a categorical assurance that the Government’s intention to merge the Serious Organised Crime Agency with the new national crime agency will not result in any diminution of personnel and resources directed at fighting crime of this kind? Furthermore, will the Government’s recently announced review of intellectual property and its value to the UK economy also address the threat posed by intellectual property crime?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, of course many sorts of crime are involved. The original Question was clearly about espionage but there is also theft, to which the noble Lord referred—that is, crime of a more straightforward kind—and both those aspects of our intellectual underpinning in this country need to be addressed. I can give the assurance that there will be no change in the status of SOCA, which will remain central—and I mean central—to crime-fighting in this country, so there will be no diminution in our efforts on that front. As those on the Benches opposite may know, we will produce a strategy for cybercrime by the end of the year. Therefore, I can give that assurance, and we agree with those on the Benches opposite that this is a matter of high national importance.