The Digital Economy Bill has been passed by the House of Commons and will become law before the general election. The Bill was passed amidst criticisms from inside and outside of Parliament about the lack of Parliamentary time and debate given to it.
The Bill was designed to implement last summer's Digital Britain Report, itself the result of a long and extensive research and consultation process. Its most controversial proposals, though, were added in later without such consultation.
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is widely believed to have been behind the insertion into the Bill of a provision to cut off the internet access to households where one user has been accused of copyright infringing behaviour.
The power for ministers to force internet service providers (ISPs) to disconnect households or businesses has been controversial and digital rights groups have attacked the fact that it can be carried out without court oversight under the plans.
Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers introduced a clause allowing for the blocking of websites which were being used for mass copyright infringement when the law was debated in the House of Lords.
Though they retracted that amendment, the Government proposed a very similar one soon after which extends to the blocking of online locations that are 'likely to' be used for infringement.
Neither of these proposals, seen by activists as the most damaging to the rights of web users, were in the original Digital Britain Report.
"This is an utter disgrace. This is an attack on everyone's right to communicate, work and gain an education," said Jim Killock, executive director of protest group the Open Rights Group. "Politicians have shown themselves to be incompetent and completely out of touch with an entire generation's values."
The Bill was passed in an accelerated and truncated Parliamentary process called the 'wash up', used when a general election has been announced to rush legislation through before the break up of Parliament.
The wash up can only be used for unopposed legislation, and in return for their support the Conservative Party demanded the exclusion of Clause 43 from the Bill. This related to orphan works – copyrighted material whose owner cannot be identified or found – and was opposed by photographers, who feared it would permit their work to be used without their permission or without payment.
Clause 18, which contained the website-blocking proposal, was removed and its content relocated to a new Clause 1 of the Bill.
The Bill had its second reading in the Commons on Tuesday, and yesterday had both its Committee stage and third reading in the Commons, where it was passed by 189 votes to 47, largely through the votes of MPs who had not attended the debate.
Other Government plans that were taken out of laws passing through the wash up process included the funding from the licence fee of new news consortia in the regions and its plans to impose a £6 per year phone line tax to pay for the building of a superfast broadband network.
Minister Stephen Timms told the House of Commons that if re-elected the Government would reinstate the phone line tax after the election.
Yesterday's announcement of a general election next month has put this highly-controversial Bill on a fast-track process where it does not belong. It is
likely to be passed tonight as part of this process which is known as 'wash up'.
'Wash up' refers to the last few days of a Parliament, after the election has been announced but before dissolution. Bills not passed before the dissolution are lost – so in the wash up period, outstanding bills that are unopposed are rushed through. It suits uncontroversial laws. It does not suit a law like the Digital Economy Bill.
Of the country's 643 MPs, just 40 turned up for yesterday's Second Reading, of whom only 10 stayed throughout proceedings, according to a critic who kept count . The whole thing was watched on Parliament Live TV and participants were silently heckled by more than 5,000 Twitter users.
The Digital Economy Bill introduces powers that may see households disconnected from the internet on accusations of file-sharingand websites blocked by British ISPs because they stand accused of copyright infringment.
Coffee shops, airports and hotels are also given reason to rethink their Wi-Fi services. "It cannot be right for us to cut off the whole of Starbucks just because one person went in for a cup of coffee and illegally shared files," observed Conservative MP John Whittingdale last night.
The arguments for and against these measures received short shrift in Parliament. It seems that passing the Bill before next month's general election has taken priority over what the thing actually says. Each party acknowledges that the Bill is being rushed yet it seems that nothing will stand in its way.
Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt called the Bill "a weak, dithering and incompetent attempt to breathe life into Britain's digital economy", while shadow science and innovation minister Adam Afriyie referred to the bill as "botched legislation".
But Hunt will not oppose the Bill. He explained that if the Conservatives come to power in May, his party will fix any problems with the Bill, "if it turns out that the legislation is flawed." In wash up, he is seeking only changes to clauses on orphan works, regional broadcasting and Ofcom's powers.
The Liberal Democrats, who said last month that the Bill should be scrapped and reintroduced in the next Parliament, had just one representative at last night's debate, Don Foster.
The MP for Bath expressed concern about the technical measures that the Bill enables, i.e. the powers to disconnect users. But his solution is broadly the same as Hunt's.
"The next Parliament deserves to be given the maximum opportunity to scrutinise any such proposals," said Foster. The Lib Dems will back the Bill tonight if they can get that assurance and others (they want a planned consultation process for the site blocking measures extended to the disconnection powers; and they want extra safeguards for Wi-Fi operators).
The
text of the five-hour debate (243-page PDF) makes for a disheartening read. It's like a case study in how to pass bad law in a hurry. Whatever you think of this Bill, it presents a significant change to digital rights and remedies in the UK. It deserves proper debate and proper scrutiny. It should not be passed.