I thank all noble Lords for their comments. I start by addressing the conflation of some issues and the confusion that has been raised. On the confusion regarding the filters regime and its legality in terms of Europe, we must legislate to make our filters regime legal according to the new net neutrality regulations. The date for that is by December 2016. To be clear: we need to do something to keep our existing regime viable and functional under the law. That is the first thing. As the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, so aptly presented in his comments, the Prime Minister said that we would legislate to make sure that our filters regime is legal under European law.
It is not fair to insinuate that by challenging the vehicle we are somehow not supporting or speaking up for children. That is so far from the truth. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, said that filters are not a silver bullet and explained to us how technically they work. The work being done by the British Standards Institution and the Digital Policy Alliance to define a standard for things such as age verification is vital to staying ahead of this problem. If the result of this work is something that the ISPs can then adopt, we will have an evidence-based technological solution that will support us going forward. That is much better than trying to tell the ISPs how to do it. We are looking to experts and developing an evidence base so that we can do this properly and voluntarily. The ISPs have said that they are willing to take that on board.
When the Digital Policy Alliance reports back to tell us how this can be done effectively, it will take time for these companies to go back to their engineering teams and develop solutions that enable them to implement those recommendations. That all takes time. You cannot legislate for that today. We are not talking about whether we are committed to it or the industry is committed to it.