It's been a while since I last posted anything, and frankly, since the election and the Royal Assent of the DEB, it seems a little pointless talking about it. But, I started, so I'll finish. I still think it's useful to look back on, especially if it proves to be as important a piece of legislation as I think it will be.

Clause 15 : Sharing of costs. Baroness Howe of Idlicote had some words to say regarding costs for copyright holders. As before, it was made clear that copyright holders will pay most of the costs, but ISPs will pay some of them, which will inevitably result in consumers paying a higher price for their internet connection. Oh well.

Clause 16 : Interpretation and consequential provision. One amendment for this, defining "subscriber appeal", that's all. It's for that new clause I mentioned before.

Clause 17 : Power to amend copyright provisions. Yes, the dreaded Clause 17 was debated earlier, and since the government lost the division before, they didn't contest it here. Therefore, Clause 17 changed from "Power to amend copyright provisions" into "Preventing access to specified online locations for the prevention of online copyright infringement". Basically, stopping you getting to illegal websites, rather than changing copyright law. Still a bit controversial, but only for illegal downloaders. You have been warned. Does this mark the end of one-click hosting services? I hope not.

Clause 18 : Powers in relation to internet domain registries. A bit of discussion here, but mainly asking about the definition of words in a legal context. Nothing of note.

Clause 19 : Appointment of manager of internet domain registry. The first amendment, 126, was received warmly as it showed that the government were actually listening to concerns expressed in Committee stage. The other amendment was passed without comment, so obviously received well, too.

Clause 20 : Application to court to alter constitution of internet domain registry. Two drafting amendments agreed.

Clause 21 : Functions of C4C in relation to media content. Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury jumped out to say that it would be bad for Channel 4 to make things in-house. As it stands, they commission programmes from 3rd party production companies (if you've ever watched anything on the channel, you may have noticed different companies listed on the end credits). She thought that, as the Bill stood, it allowed C4C to produce things in-house, provided they're not for the main channel. C4C don't just have one channel anymore, of course, so I guess her concern that there needs to be a revision of their remit is correct. In-house production, she said, "goes against its whole ethos".

Other Lords disagreed: they suggested that, since the world has changed so much, and TV ad revenues are dwindling, restricting the channel with the Baroness' amendment would not be a good idea. Lord Davies of Oldham said the company "needs to maintain in-house production capability, even though the great majority of content is commissioned externally". So, just because C4C are allowed to make certain things in-house, that shouldn't change things too much. I'm sure if it ever became a big problem, we could pass another Act, so I think it's safe to leave it there.

Clauses 22 to 25 weren't mentioned, so we'll skip them.

Clause 26 : Report by OFCOM on public teletext service. Just one amendment, with no debate.

Clause 27 wasn't mentioned either, so we'll skip that one too.

Clause 28 : Appointed providers of regional or local news. Baroness Bonham-Carter did well in this clause, as she had five amendments agreed to - well done to the Lib Dems. Lord Puttnam tried to get in with his appeal to stop Fox News-esque programming, saying "megaphone propaganda damages democracy". Several Lords agreed, and Lord Fowler provided his own personal story: he "used to be chairman of the Yorkshire Post. We were called Yorkshire Conservative Newspapers but had to change the name when the Queen came to open the building because it was not regarded as satisfactory. By the time I became chairman, it was called Regional Independent Media and everything was left to the editors, as I think is right and proper". Lord Davies accepted it, since he had "just accepted amendments from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench and I am not sure that my noble friend Lord Puttnam would take too kindly to me being resistant to his". Lord Puttnam is Labour, so you see his little joke there.

In getting her fifth amendment agreed to, Baroness Bonham-Carter jokingly stated that she'd "trumped the noble Lord, Lord Howard, in accepted amendments". Nice one. The Tories went on yet again about their opposition to public subsidy for local news consortia. They went over the same spiel at Committee. Lord Gordon of Strathblane accepted Lord De Mauley's concern over this, but said that he must "reflect on the fact that ITV has more or less said in terms that it cannot continue to provide regional news". What's to be done? If ITV aren't going to do it, it's clearly not that profitable, so public subsidy is pretty much necessary. It's not the best idea ever, but "it is the least bad one", he said. Lord De Mauley won't listen to that, of course.

Lord Puttnam quite rightly made the point that he wasn't in favour of local news being permanently "in the quasi-public sector", but "the idea of getting a new shape, a new player, into the marketplace and then finding a mechanism whereby it can move off into private hands" was a good one, which is what the government was suggesting. Lord Fowler, for the Tories, interestingly supported the government's amendment, against his party's wishes. Although he went on again about how it "takes us back to the 1950s, but it is worse than that because in the 1950s, at least we had strong regional newspapers" and so on, he still thought the government idea was sound.

On seeing this, Lord Davies jokingly, and rhetorically, asked "what is the role of a Minister when friends fall out in the Opposition?" He understood people's concern about "the ogre that can be created. It is that this will be subject to the Orwellian monstrosity of Ofcom control of news: a deep-laid government plot to ensure that there is a monopoly controller who will eye us all from the television set, which will be the only provision we will get. No; that particular ogre will not materialise. Editorial judgment and control will remain precisely where they should be - with the news providers, who will need support in the early stages". And that's enough of that.

No mention of Clause 29.

Clause 30 : Digital switchover. There was the debate about switching FM off, as before, but Lord Davies of Oldham pointed out that "the idea that the Government are about to alienate 20 million car owners by telling them that their radios are defunct, out of date and will not work is somewhat unrealistic". He made it very clear that, although they're aiming to switch to digital by 2015, they have no intention of switching FM off for a long, long time. Meanwhile, Lord Howard of Rising, who'd brought up the discussion, was "delighted to hear some support from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, after the sandbagging that I received from the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter", referring to her "trumping" him in amendments.

I'll finish report stage in the next post. Still working on the last bit.