Deregulation Bill

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Grand Committee

Debate on whether Clause 41 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, is not in his place at the moment. He enjoined us to pay respect to the wonderful skills of the Minister who is about to respond to his fourth topic of the day. Having moved seamlessly from sport to parking and to marine inquiries, he now has to deal with intellectual property and, in particular, the blocking of ISPs—not an easy topic, as I know that he knows, but one that has to be dealt with as we consider Clause 41.

The clause would remove a power from the Digital Economy Act 2010 to make regulations containing site-blocking provisions. The Act gives courts the power to grant injunctions requiring internet service providers to block access to specified sites to prevent the infringement of copyright. The power was included to enable copyright owners to tackle sites based outside the UK that offer their copyrighted material illegally. Copyright owners are not able to take action against those sites in the UK and find it difficult to pursue them in their home territory. It was therefore considered reasonable to provide the ability to block access via internet service providers.