I am glad to have caught your eye, Mr Speaker, in this not so crowded Chamber. I presume that everybody is paying great attention to the debate on their television screens. It goes to show the lack of interest in intellectual property issues, which disappoints me very much. As I have said before, we need a Minister who is answerable for intellectual property in this House, so that we can raise these very important questions, and so that an IP Minister can respond to these critical debates on this very important issue.
Amendment 1 stands in my name. We have discussed the issue before—on Second Reading and in Committee—and we have had assurances from the Minister, but now is the time for a cast-iron commitment. He knows the anxieties and concerns about this issue, not just from the Law Society of Scotland and the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, but from the whole legal community in Scotland, which remains very concerned that Scotland will lose the right to judge, assess and hear cases to do with patents.
The Minister may have his views about me as a Member of Parliament, but the Faculty of Advocates and the Court of Session in Edinburgh could hardly be described as hotbeds of nationalist militancy. If even the Faculty of Advocates could write to the Minister in such graphic terms about its concerns, surely those concerns should be taken into account and treated seriously. We have heard enough warm words from the Minister; we must now start to hear him express a commitment to Scotland.
It is possible that, after centuries, we will lose the right to consider patent issues in the Scottish courts. Clause 17 makes provision
“to confer…remove… or vary the jurisdiction of a court”
in relation to the new unified patent court, thus effectively allowing the United Kingdom to decide how to approach the whole issue of divisional courts. The UK can have up to three or four of them. Why can it not accept the Court of Session as one of those courts? My amendments would simply ensure that Scotland was once more a jurisdiction with the ability to rule on important patent cases.
We all support the arrival of the new unified patent court. Of course it makes sense for patent hearings to be unified across all the jurisdictions in the European Union, and many of us have argued long and hard to that effect. It will make life so much easier for our inventors, creators and artists. However, it cannot come at a price for Scotland’s legal establishment. For Scotland, with its history of invention and creation, to be denied the ability to consider the issue of patents is—patently—absurd. For decades, if not centuries, the Court of
Session in Edinburgh has had the power to consider patent issues in Scotland. We have built up experience and skills that may be lost if we are denied access to a divisional court.
Scotland has a distinct legal establishment. For the last 300 years, as members of the United Kingdom, we have been able to keep our own Scots law when it comes to matters such as this, and people have acquired the necessary experience of that law—and, of course, we in Scotland have a history and culture of creativity that goes back for centuries. As you know, Mr Speaker, Scotland practically invented the modern world: everything from tarmacadam to television was invented by Scotsmen, and today we are still achieving things through our biotechnologies and biosciences. There has been Dolly the sheep, for instance, and—I recall that the Minister rebuked me when I mentioned this in Committee—our contribution to the Higgs boson. Scotland has a culture of being able to invent and create, and we must be allowed to consider issues relating to that culture in our own courts.
Yesterday, in advance of today’s debate, a programme on BBC Scotland showed some of our fantastic new creators and inventors, who are coming up with wonderful new products. They were discussing the importance of allowing these matters to be considered in Scotland. Our Scots law is a totem, an important centre. Some fantastic examples were shown during that BBC Scotland programme—and, I should add, there were some particularly good comments from me. The programme demonstrated the degree of interest in these issues that exists in Scotland, as indeed it should, because the creative industries are important to Scotland. Indeed, they are probably more important to Scotland than they are to the rest of the United Kingdom: we invest more in them, and they play a dynamic and important role in the overall Scottish economy.
Our history of invention and creation makes it plain that Scotland is more than adequately equipped to be a successful independent nation. We know that we could be one of the wealthiest nations in the world because of the resources and skill of our people. If we were independent, this would not be an issue, because, as a member state of the European Union, we would be allowed direct access to the unified patent court. There is an especially important reason why that should happen. It is important to the legal establishment, and it is important to all the individuals who are involved in business. Why should Scottish business men have to bear the extra costs of going to a different jurisdiction to have their day in court and secure justice in relation to important patent issues? We have some incredible new industries in Scotland, not least in the renewable sector and particularly in oil and gas. Our businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises, need to be able to come to Edinburgh for this purpose. Not being able to do so is an inconvenience that small businesses in Scotland can ill afford.
This is in the Government’s gift. All the Minister need do is say “Yes, the court in Edinburgh will be one of the divisional courts.” London, of course, will have one of the central divisional courts, as will Paris and Munich. As I said in Committee, all that we need is New York: then we could have “Pop Muzik” by M. So London will be looked after, but what about the other capitals in the United Kingdom? We are always being
told that Scotland has a part to play in the UK—indeed, that is what the debate that we shall continue to have over the next few months is all about—so why has it been overlooked?
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I shall tell the House why I think Scotland has been overlooked. My view—and perhaps the Minister will be able to confirm it—is that the Government simply did not think about it. As so often when it comes to issues to do with Scotland on their watch, they did not really consider it. Now they have been told about it, and they are saying “This must be addressed, because it is clearly a bit of an issue.” The Minister needs to say that this will be resolved, and to give a cast-iron commitment and guarantee that the Court of Session in Edinburgh will be one of the UK’s permitted divisional courts. If he were to do that, he would be a hero of the Scottish legal establishment. He would be carried through the streets of Edinburgh by the Faculty of Advocates. He would be celebrated. Moreover, he would be doing his bit for the Union. After all, the denial to Scotland of a divisional court could become an issue in the referendum. The Minister now has an opportunity to put that right, and I very much hope that he will be able to do so.
This issue could be resolved very easily. It is in the Government’s gift. The Minister knows our concerns: he has heard them again and again. This is one issue that has united Scotland’s entire legal establishment. I say to the Minister “Just resolve it, for goodness sake. It is in your gift, and you could do it very easily.”
I support new clause 1, and if the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) seeks to divide the House, I shall continue to support it. I am afraid that I missed the debate on this important new clause in Committee, and I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for not being present then. Such are the limited resources among the personnel of the Scottish National party that, unfortunately, I had to exercise my responsibilities for home affairs in relation to the Immigration Bill, but I am grateful to him for returning the new clause to us.
The issue of copyright exceptions is proving to be the most controversial aspect of the Hargreaves process, and it has caused real angst and concern among members of our creative community. They are the people—the stakeholders, or rights-holders—who come to see the Minister regularly. They are the people who work day in, day out to ensure that the United Kingdom remains in the top five of every creative, artistic and inventive discipline in the world, whether that is music, films, television or design. We cannot mess about with that; we must ensure that we get it right.
The people who come and speak to the Minister about these issues know their business, because they are involved in it day in, day out, bringing billions of pounds’ worth of economic activity to the United Kingdom. The Government must start to listen to them. They have been accused of “lobbynomics”, but not by the Minister; indeed, I have never heard any member of the Government use the term. I believe that it was used by Ian Hargreaves while he was conducting his review. I know that the Minister, members of his Department and representatives of the Intellectual Property Office frequently meet the stakeholders, consult them, discuss the issues with them, and take on board what they say, but they do not actually listen to them. We may have
consultation fatigue, but we certainly have no fatigue when it comes to trying to put the case to the Government and trying to ensure that they listen.
Why does the issue of copyright exceptions cause so much grief to those who work so hard to ensure that our creative industries continue to be world-class? The answer is quite simple. The more exceptions there are to our copyright legislation, the more difficult it is to protect our creators, artists and inventors. They are the primary drivers of all the cogs and wheels of our creative economy, and they must be central to any discussion of that economy. Copyright protection is one of the things they can rely on to make sure that they continue to innovate, take risks and produce wonderful works that we uniquely are able to produce right across these islands.
Those who argue for copyright exceptions continually suggest and assert that copyright is restrictive—that it somehow stifles creativity and is effectively a barrier to growth. That is what we continually hear from Ministers of whatever party, but nothing could be further from the truth. I just wish that some day we would have a Minister who will come to the Dispatch Box and tell us what a wonderful thing copyright is, and what a contribution it makes to the well-being of our artists, inventors and creators. I have never heard that in my 13 years in the House, and I am sure that most other Members have not heard it either.
Copyright is not a barrier to economic growth and development and support for our artists. It enables that. We are successful in this country and we have such success in our creative industries not despite copyright, but because of copyright. It would be really good to hear about the contribution and value that copyright brings to our creative industries and how it enables and supports our artists, creators and inventors.
I believe that this Government still see copyright as a barrier to growth. I believe that because of the way all this started. It started with the Googlesburg address from the Prime Minister, when he told us he could never foresee the arrival of a Google in the United Kingdom because our IP laws and copyright framework would restrict its emergence. The very process we are debating and concluding today, possibly along with the whole Hargreaves process, started with the assumption that somehow copyright is a barrier—that it is restrictive and gets in the way of economic development and growth. The whole of the Hargreaves process was predicated on that assumption and, as a result we are today looking at these particular exceptions and dealing with them in this way. The Government are again putting forward the idea that exceptions are required because they see copyright as a restrictive practice.
That is so unimaginative. It is the language of the last decade. That battle has been fought and won. It was the battle of the Digital Economy Act 2010. We have moved on since then. The world view of copyright and supporting our artists has changed dramatically, yet we are still fighting the battles of the past. We are talking about intellectual property here, so let us be intelligent and creative; let us start to look at things differently. Let us stop going through the tired old prospectuses. Let us start looking at copyright as an enabler—at how we best support our artists, creators and inventors. This is a new world. We have moved on since the Digital Economy Act. We are in the world of complete digitisation and of e-commerce—of ensuring we can monetise people’s
works and efforts online. We have not done that with this measure. We have lost this opportunity because we have focused so much on copyright exceptions, inspired by the IPO, and taken forward by Ministers. It is such a dreary and unimaginative way to progress with such an important issue.
If this Government are re-elected next year, let us try to do this differently. Let us try to be creative about how we take this forward. I cannot see that happening, however, because I still very much believe that in the heads of this Government’s Members, just as in those of previous Government Members, there is a difficulty and an issue with copyright that must be rectified and challenged to ensure that it is not going to be restrictive.
We are going to have these particular statutory instruments, therefore, and the hon. Member for Hartlepool is absolutely right that we have no idea what is being taken forward. This is all still with parliamentary counsel and we do not know when we are going to see these SIs or how many there will be. Will there be one? Will there be several, and if so will they be put together? This debate goes all the way back to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill and we are still no clearer on how this is going to be taken forward. It would be totally unacceptable if these SIs were to be bundled together into one.
The creative industries have concerns about some of the economic impact assessments that have been done, and there are concerns about compliance with European law in respect of some of the technical details of these exceptions. The parody issue is particularly important. Some of the economic impact assessments done by the IPO were totally bizarre and hardly worth the paper they were written on. For instance, the exception for parody is said to be worth £600,000. That figure was arrived at by taking the total value of the global entertainment market, which the IPO reckoned was about $2 trillion, and then it estimated that with the parody exception the UK share of that market would be up to 0.05%, which translates to something like £650 million in growth. What a fantastic way to look at these things.
On private copying, the IPO said in its economic impact assessment that if a private copy exception were in place by 2020 it would bring £2 billion into the UK economy. That extraordinary figure was arrived at by assuming that all sorts of UK technology firms that otherwise would be restrained and held back would be bursting to come through with new ideas and new pieces of hardware. The contention is that the iPod could possibly have been invented in that period. That is how these economic impact assessments are worked out. That is why we must be able to consider all these SIs differently. We must be able to look at them so that we can challenge some of the figures and ask the Minister again and again about the detail and how we move forward.
I support the amendment, which asks for this to be done in the context of the Government’s view about how to move forward in respect of intellectual property. I would like to hear about that. I would like us to move forward with renewed vigour and with imagination and creativity.
I also support the other amendments of the hon. Member for Hartlepool. I will start with the Scottish one. We have no issues at all in academia in Scotland.
Things work perfectly well for us in terms of freedom of information. I hope that this will be pursued and I think it can be brought forward.
A case can be made for both registered designs and unregistered designs. That is where we find most of the business. We have seen the assets database and we know this can be done.
This has been an interesting debate. We now move forward to considering these SIs. I sincerely hope that they will not be bundled together and that we have the opportunity to consider them properly and vote on them separately.