Chris Bryant

My hon. Friend is entirely right about the issue of enforcement, although traditionally it is not for Governments to enforce the law. It is for the courts to do that, although in certain circumstances when there has been a breach of the criminal law, it will be for the prosecuting authorities to consider. In a way this makes my point, which is that it is all very well to legislate on transparency requirements, but if there are no enforcement measures it will not make the blindest bit of difference. All this has to be done in the round. We have already said that we want to engage with the creative sector and, of course, the technology sector as much as we can. We believe that such engagement will help to chart the way forward on both transparency and technical standards, and possibly on technical solutions to the problem. It may be that the working groups bring other benefits, such as interim voluntary arrangements, until longer-term solutions can be agreed on and implemented. However, we must see what comes of the process rather than imposing preconditions at this early stage. For all those reasons, I urge Members to vote against the Lords amendment. The first part of the proposed new clause is a helpful addition to the work that we will do and are now committed to doing, but the lion’s share of it would lead to what I believe is confusing law and constitutionally uncertain.