My Lords, I want briefly to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope—my noble and learned kinsman—in expressing my thanks for the way in which these points have been taken, but perhaps I may add a little a gloss to what he said. The way he expressed it was that this is going to aid the generic judge in doing their job more efficiently than would otherwise be the case. However, it is worth recalling that the discussion we had in Committee on this—it was prompted by the evidence we received—turned on the fact that this is quite a key point in trying to perceive within the Bill the evolutionary steps that the Law Commission said existed, as this Bill provides a route forward from where we were in previous times to where we might be in the future in the possibility of establishing a more general tort in relation to business ethics and business behaviour, of which it is arguable that unjustified threats are a very unjustifiable part of the business environment. I know that the Minister shares my thinking on this and I agree with her that this is not the Bill in which to take these issues forward, but I think we both hope that there will be an opportunity to come back to this issue in some future legislation.
The point is an important one. If we see this piece of legislation as a step on a journey towards an alignment that is closer than is currently the case with the Paris convention 1883, we will be in a more satisfactory place to understand and perhaps plan forwards on how these things might happen. Whether that should be in the Digital Economy Bill which is soon to arrive with us, we do not know, because it is not being dealt with in the Minister’s department any more. However, I am sure that she will take a close interest in it, particularly if the words “intellectual property” are flashed around. I am sure that she will be like a moth to the flame coming back to support us. In the interim, we support these amendments.
8.30 pm