Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)

My Lords, I very much hope that the Government will accept the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. It strikes me as a practical and important contribution to the Bill. In addition to the points that have already been made by noble colleagues, there is one more thought to be added: one of the weaknesses of the present marketplace in which these skills are operating is the cost and affordability of advice and help for SMEs on security issues. It is costly—security does not come cheap. Many of these small businesses that nevertheless provide sophisticated services are up against it when it comes to making an adequate profit to stay in business. Therefore, a source of guidance and help, of the kind that is being suggested by this structure, would make a real contribution to not only the viability of these small firms but the general security of cyber security services. We should never forget that these SMEs feed into the bigger ones. Often, it is an outlying service being provided to a bigger provider that is the cause of a fault or of an essential service proving insecure. Helping SMEs in this way would not only make them more secure but make the market generally more secure. This is a very important and helpful amendment, which I hope the Government will accept.