Speaking at the Liberal Democrat spring conference this morning, Danny Alexander MP (Vice Chair of the Federal Policy Committee and chair of the party’s General Election Manifesto Group) said the party will seek to make further changes to the Digital Economy Bill when it comes to the Commons.
The Bill, currently passing through the Lords, has been the subject of much debate (such as here and here) and yesterday Liberal Democrat peers announced plans to table further amendments to the bill.
This morning Danny Alexander committed the party to supporting further changes to the Digital Economy Bill, saying:
There is more work to be done to improve it yet further when it comes to the House of Commons.
He also said that following the general election the party would need to develop and update its policies in this area further, commenting:
I’m not sure the party’s policy has necessarily kept pace with developments.
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14 Comments
Well, I’m quite sure it hasn’t. To “update” the policies would be a neat trick, since there aren’t any.
I think that what we need to do is convince the FPC to form a working group or something. Nice to see at least one of them seems to be amenable to the idea.
Its a shame that Danny desn’t recognise that neither the Digital Economy bill nor amendment 120a can’t be fixed, they are fundamentally flawed and the whole bill needs to be rewritten from scratch.
I find it a bit worrying that the vice-chair of our Federal Policy Committee is so happy to accept an amendment drafted by the BPI (and submitted by a partner in the legal firm representing them) to a Bill designed by Lord Mandelson on David Geffen’s yacht in the Med.
There is nothing liberal or democratic about this legslation, how it was drafted or by whom – it seems to mostly be unelected peers representing special interests in the music industry in return for favours or business it makes the cash for questions scandal seem quite tame and quaint.
Andrew,
Funny you should say that.. we’ve been campaigning for a long time for exactly that, http://act.libdems.org.uk/group/libdemsforsomedecentitpolicy
It seems that since the Bill will pass, doing whatever possible to improve it would be constructive. (When we get a commons majority, we can reverse it!)
Harry – wrong on both counts – the tories have already said they would block it unless conditions were met and it needs to be unopposed to go through the washup period.
The changes thus far do not remedy any of the serious flaws in amendment 120a, it stil has the same effects and are not what party members nor industry groups have demanded – only the BPI are hapy withe changes nobody else.
Andrew: I suspect the “update” reference was to the IT policy working group’s paper of a few years ago.
OK, with the tories providing some weight there is more negotiating room, then!
Danny shows how out of touch the party leadership are :
“I’m not sure the party’s policy has necessarily kept pace with developments.”
..massive understatent.
Unless the FPC act immediately on the emercancy motion on internet freedom which demands a working group, rather than .leaving it until June we wont have any IT Policy before polling day, and we are already more than a year behind the tories who have commisioned a report and even have a Digital Manifesto tha is very good : http://dizzythinks.net/2010/03/tories-get-it-with-it-devleopment.html
Mark
You mean the 2003 one,that ammounts to a couple of pages of bland truisms, that make even Becta look radical?
We don’t even have a working group any more, LDO has been inactie since 2004 and we havent had an IT spokesperson for about as long – its a total mess and I’ve been shouting about it for years.
The tories are doing a much much better job on this front and have done for years as somebdy high up in their party has been listening – complete opposite to us and their simply no excuse.. how can Nick Clegg or anybody claim we are a modern policy?
Aaron: I mean the one from 2003 that was a lengthy document and covered a wide range of policies, including software patents and copyright law reform. Given that the people who drew it up are by and large still active in the party and also agree with you on the Digital Economy Bill having numerous problems, it seems to me that – aside from your comments not being accurate – dismissing their work as brief and trivial may not be the smartest way to win any debate?
From the executive summary of the paper:
Provide government support for broadband rollout in cases where the market is failing and better connectivity would improve the economic potential of an area.
Support continued widespread innovation in software by resisting the wider application of patents in this area.
Work towards a copyright law for the digital age that supports artistic endeavour without imposing unnecessary restrictions on legitimate purchasers of work.
Ensure that government plays an active role in supporting industry bodies that are seeking to raise the standard of material sent over the Internet.
Promote the further development and take up of IT qualifications.
Work with existing fora on IT skills requirements to make public recommendations both on domestic training needs and on the need to recruit labour from overseas.
Review IR 35 to allow specialist contractors to charge reasonable and legitimate expenses against their pre-tax income.
Improve the use of IT by government.
Ensure that government delivers better services using IT.
Replace crude quantitive e-government targets with indicators based on the quality of electronic service delivery systems.
Oh dear.. I reaaly didn’t look long enough at that.. my apologies to Martin Tod et al
On actually looking at the full paper rather than a poor summary of it, it’s rather good – in fact it predates and with some more radical ideas and modernisation could be much better than the tory one..
what a shame the party leadership don’t care and have left it to gather dust for nearly a decade! Even more of a shame that we’re so slow we wont have a working group or cobnsultation in time for the election and the tories have stolen a march on us
If anybody is interested, the last IT policy consultation and policy paper can be found at http://www.makeitpolicy.org.uk/ its just a shame our MPs and peers didn’t bother to read it before the #debill
Fair enough 🙂
Can’t wait for the explanation for Lord Tim’s financial ties with the copyright-holders and then forgetting to mention that most of his amendment was copied word for word from the BPI draft.
It’s the second time his financial links have been called into question too.
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