Lord Clement-Jones (LD)

My Lords, first, I congratulate the Law Commission for its work on this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has mentioned the almost 1,000 pages of work from the Law Commission, its consultation paper, the final report, the supplemental report—no one accused the Law Commission of a lack of thoroughness as far as this two-clause Bill is concerned. Its purpose, as it said, was to ensure that the courts can respond sensitively to the complexity of emerging technology and apply the law to new fact patterns involving that technology. It also said: “We conclude that the flexibility of common law allows for the recognition of a distinct category of personal property that can better recognise, accommodate and protect the unique features of certain digital assets (including crypto-tokens and cryptoassets). We recommend legislation to confirm the existence of this category and remove any uncertainty”. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, has explained, we have thoroughly examined the resulting Bill under the Special Public Bill procedure, and it clearly fulfils that purpose, so I would like to thank our witnesses. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, for his excellent chairing of the committee; our clerk, Matthew Burton; the Minister, of course; my fellow members for all their work on the Bill; and I agree with the Minister’s particular thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for his stimulating and provocative input into our deliberations. But, as ever, there is more work to be done. The Law Commission recommended that the Government create a panel of industry experts who can provide guidance on technical and legal issues relating to digital assets, and I understand that the Ministry of Justice has asked the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce, an expert group chaired by the Master of the Rolls that produces non-binding guidance on areas of legal uncertainty, to take forward this work. The Law Commission also made recommendations to provide market participants with legal tools that do not yet exist in England and Wales, let alone in Northern Ireland, such as new ways to take security over crypto tokens and tokenised securities. It recommended that this work be undertaken by a multidisciplinary project team. Whether the Minister can give us an update today, I do not know, but I very much hope that he will write to members of the committee, because that is unfinished business and it would be very useful to hear from the Minister about it.