I think everybody welcomes the Bill as far as it goes. The Minister said in introducing it that it was a small but perfectly formed extract from Hargreaves. I agree to some extent with part of the latter, but I certainly agree with the former.
The value of the creative industries—however one chooses to define them—to the UK economy is certainly no less than £20 billion, and I have seen figures suggesting sums up to four and five times that. They are therefore a significant part of our economic and social activity. In the fields of music, arts, literature, film, design, invention, fashion and innovation, Britain is an international leader. That is why we need the strongest possible framework for IP protection and why I think the whole House will welcome the Bill as far as it goes.
May I ask the Minister to tell the Prime Minister that Viscount Younger of Leckie in the other place is the Minister for intellectual property, because when I asked the Prime Minister a question a couple of months ago, he seemed to believe it was the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey)? The fact that the Prime Minister does not know who his intellectual property Minister is does not bode well for the Government’s policy in general in respect of the sector. In a letter, Viscount Younger and the Minister for Universities and Science said that the Bill had three main points:
“to simplify and improve design and patent protection; to clarify the IP legal framework; and to ensure the international IP system supports UK businesses effectively.”
In an additional note included with that letter to all Members, three further areas were highlighted: clarifying and enforcing rights in design; improving the operation of UK patent law; and reorganising the Intellectual Property Office and giving it an annual review. I am an office-holder—don’t ask me which one—of the all-party parliamentary intellectual property group, and I see other members of the group in the Chamber today. We have discussed the proposals and I certainly welcome them.
Will the Minister tell us whether the Intellectual Property Office’s new role will include that of champion, advocate or protector of intellectual property rights, rather than being merely a registry as it was when it was the Patent Office? There is a strong feeling that, since it took on the broader remit, it has been searching for a role. I am led to believe that one of its leading officials is going off to pastures greener—or perhaps a different colour altogether—in the near future. I hope that the Government will take the opportunity to redefine the purpose of the IPO, particularly as many competitor countries have a far more interventionist role in IP, given its value to the economy. Perhaps the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) could become a tsar, or be given some other rank. I can think of plenty worse appointments; they number at least 20! We need to take this matter far more seriously and push it up the agenda, particularly as we move from an economy based on industry and manufacturing to one that is more knowledge-based. A modern economy needs the protection of strong IP rules and regulations.
In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), I mentioned the Library briefing document on the Bill. It states that a survey of 36 similar
countries found that the UK was ranked as the best place to obtain, exploit and enforce copyright, but that it was ranked second for patents and only fifth for design. That illustrates the imbalance that exists. The question posed in recent years has been whether the existing legislative framework is inhibiting expansion of the design sector. In 2010, the Prime Minister set up the review under Professor Hargreaves. That followed the Gowers review, which was set up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) in 2005. That review reported in 2006, and I have to be candid and say that I was disappointed that the then Government did not do more to implement its findings. I suspect that that was for similar reasons to those that are afflicting the present Government—namely, that parts of the Government do not really understand the necessity of providing the strongest possible legal framework for creators and innovators.
Hargreaves replicated much of what Gowers had done. He reached different conclusions in different areas, but there are parts of his report on which we need to make progress. Given that the Bill represents only part of the fall-out—that is not really the right word; I should say the results—of the Hargreaves report, does the Minister acknowledge that there is much more to do? Given the threadbare nature of the Government’s programme, the inability of the component parts of the coalition to agree on very much at all, and the likelihood of there being precious little more for the House to do after the next Queen’s Speech, would that not be an ideal opportunity to fillet some more out of the Hargreaves report and bring it before the House—