Chris Bryant

The right hon. Gentleman knows that I am not going to do that. He also knows that the enforcement of copyright law is not a matter for Government because it is not the Government who enforce it. I have the enforcement regulations in my hand. Chapter VI of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 makes it very clear that infringement is actionable by copyright owners. In common with many bits of the law and with statute law in the UK, enforcement is not normally by Government. It is by either the prosecuting authorities or by people taking a civil action. Those are the measures that exist in copyright law today and we are not changing them in a single regard. Having said all that, I acknowledge the strong feelings expressed in both Houses about the need to protect the intellectual property rights of 2.4 million people who work in the creative industries in this country, including the significant proportion of the creative industries represented by the tech industries, which this week are celebrating London Tech Week. It must be said that their lordships have been persistent, so much so that they remind me of a poem by Robert Browning, “A Toccata of Galuppi’s”, about the 18th century Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi. It uses several musical terms, such as the dominant, and includes the line: “Hark, the dominant’s persistence till it must be answered to!” The Lords have been persistent, which is why we have not just listened to them; we have heard them, and we are answering them. Although the Bill, which was drafted largely by the previous Government, did not originally refer to the matter of copyright at all, that is why at a previous stage we tabled specific requirements on the Government to produce an economic impact assessment of the options available to us and to report on key issues, including transparency, technical solutions, access to data and copyright licensing within 12 months. In response to their lordships, we are going several steps further. First, we are adding two further reporting requirements on approaches to models trained overseas and on how transparency and other requirements should be enforced. Secondly, in response to the call for us to work faster—meeting the point just made by the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith)—we will deliver the economic impact assessment and reports within nine months, rather than 12 months. Thirdly, we are introducing a new requirement that the Secretary of State make a progress statement to Parliament about the documents within six months of Royal Assent.