Mr Hayes:
I will give way to my hon. Friend in a moment, but I want to give him one other piece of good news first. The UK recently announced that it will
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appoint IP attachés in countries including India and—my hon. Friend will be delighted to know—China. We expect them to be in place by the end of this financial year. They will work with host Governments on IP policies and with UK businesses to help to ensure that they can exploit and protect their IP effectively overseas.
Mr Binley: That is the quickest response for action I have every had from any Minister. I am most appreciative. I congratulate the Minister on taking on a very difficult brief that is not primarily his own. I understand that he does not want to say too much before the Government consultation has finished but, on the basis of our long friendship, will he talk to the Minister concerned about the use of search engines? The need to ensure that the creative arts get well recompensed for their product is vital and increasingly urgent.
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair): Order. That is a long intervention.
Mr Binley: I shall sit down, Mr Chope. Your guidance is welcome, as it is based on experience.
Mr Hayes: My hon. Friend is right about the matter that he raises, and I will certainly do as he asks. He has some professional expertise in this field. Other hon. Members may not know that, but I have been pleased to visit Northampton with him many times, including this week. He brings some expert understanding to the subject. As I said, I share his background in the information systems world. He is right about search engines. I will draw his comments to the attention of both my noble Friend Baroness Wilcox who has responsibility in this area and, indeed, the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage. If he had been asked to respond to the debate, contrary to what the hon. Member for Wrexham said, he would have been a peg below me; hon. Members are getting a Minister of State dealing with the matter, rather than an Under-Secretary. I think that that is a bonus. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South makes a fair point and, as I say, I will pass on his comments.
Mr Hayes: I give way to the hon. Gentleman. I did not mean to be unkind to him.
Ian Lucas: No, not at all, and I did not mean to be unkind to the Minister. I want to make that absolutely clear. This is not in any sense a personal criticism of him. As he knows, in November, the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) was a Minister within BIS and he would have been responding to this debate if that situation had continued. He stopped being a BIS Minister because of the Secretary of State’s discussions with his constituents and he is now a Minister in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. That has a real impact on this area. I am making a serious point about a problem that the Department needs to address.
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Mr Hayes: That is a point about the Government’s structure, which is a matter well above my pay grade, as the shadow Minister knows. I understand why he has made the point and it is his absolute right to put it on the record.
My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) spoke about orphan works in his thoughtful contribution. As he knows, a number of details need to be worked out on that, including the matter of remuneration. If that recommendation were accepted, we would need to work out a protocol and system for dealing with the matter in more detail than Hargreaves understandably gives us. I would be interested to hear my hon. Friend’s further thoughts on that. If he wants to develop his argument following this debate rather than on the hoof, I am sure that the Government would be happy to take into account that further insight.
Mr Hayes: My hon. Friend is going to give me a further insight now.
Damian Collins: In response to the Minister’s invitation and following the comments of the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster), if there were a system for recompense—a protocol, as the Minister suggested—would it include an escalator? Would that just include the lost licence fee not paid, or would it reflect the value of the use of the work to the person who used it?
Mr Hayes: That is exactly what I was alluding to. My hon. Friend implied that in his earlier remarks; but for the reasons he has just given, the matter is complicated. The system would need to be thought through carefully to get the balance right. As I said, if he wants to give that more thought, I would be happy to receive representations on the matter. I will then pass them on to my noble Friend Baroness Wilcox and my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage.
Pete Wishart: I simply remind the Minister that I have five minutes to sum up at the end.
Mr Hayes: That is very generous of the hon. Gentleman.
Jim Dowd: As there is a spare slot for an intervention, can I ask whether the protocol for orphaned works will include a description of due diligence, if the Minister follows such a path?
Mr Hayes: That is another interesting point. Again, that will form part of what we say when we respond to the report. The review did not deal with the subject in the detail that the hon. Gentleman refers to. The review recommendations do not come to a definitive conclusion on that subject, as he will know from having read them, but the proposal seems to be a useful addition to those recommendations and is certainly something that we will cover in our response. I am more than happy to give him that assurance.
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair): Order. I remind the Minister that it is customary in these general debates to leave five minutes at the end for the hon. Member who initiated the debate to respond and that we have to finish by 5.30 pm.
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Mr Hayes: I am happy to allow that, Mr Chope. In fact, I was just about to conclude by saying that the debate has been helpful and shown the House at its best. It has been technical, informed and non-partisan. In part, that is because of how it was introduced by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, whom I should be delighted to hear from further.
5.26 pm
Pete Wishart: I am grateful to the Minister for those remarks. I agree with them entirely. This has been a well-informed and useful debate. I hope that some of things that he has heard during the past three hours will inform the response to the Hargreaves report. I have seen the officials sitting at the back taking copious notes, so I hope that some of the helpful things raised by hon. Members from all parties will be listened to and reflected in the Government’s response when we see it, which I believe will be in the next month.
I hope that you have been intellectually stimulated by the debate on intellectual property, Mr Chope, because some fine contributions have been made. We heard from my colleagues from the all-party group on intellectual property. The elder statesman—or the young prince—of creative industries the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) raised many pertinent points, particularly about orphan works. I hope that his comments will be listened to. The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) is right to say that the report has been generally supportive but that we must be careful about how we consider some of the issues.
It was fantastic to hear from the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins). I think it is the first time I have heard him speak in one of these debates. I hope that he comes back again to give us the benefit of his vast experience in advertising. His comments were very useful. He was right to say that we must ensure that we tackle illegal activity and recalibrate the public to ensure that they go to legal sites and that artists and creators are rewarded for their work.
Unfortunately the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), who is no longer in the Chamber, gave us the lyrics without the music—it would have been good
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to have had the music. We also received some useful advice about cat litter, which I took a note of. I will see what I can do with it when I get home. She is right to say that there must be recompense to artists. She also mentioned search engines, which are critical to the matter—Google was the inspiration for all this. It was good to hear from the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), too. She is right to remind us that patents are important. That subject did not get the coverage that it required or deserved from Hargreaves, but now the Minister has listened to her comments I am sure that patents will be covered in the response.
The hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) made a pertinent speech. I will be checking out that place in China to make sure that I get my royalty from those CDs. He was right to raise that as a real issue.
It was good to hear from the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley). We perhaps disagree a little bit about format shifting. It is right that the matter should be resolved. This has been going on since the time of the cassette tape. If there is going to be an exception for format shifting, I hope that the Government look at compensation for artists and creators. The UK would be in bad company if it were not going to give any compensation to artists, given that most of Europe is doing so.
It was also good to see the hon. Member for Falkirk (Eric Joyce). We do not agree on all the issues, but it is good that he is here. On some of the language in the early-day motion he has signed, nobody talks about disconnection in the Digital Economy Act 2010. It is about reconnecting the public with the legitimate means to secure that music. I sometimes wish that we could achieve greater consensus on the language that is used.
It has been a good debate. I thank the Minister for his robust response. We look forward to seeing the Government’s response to the Hargreaves report in the next month, as we have heard today.
5.30 pm
Sitting adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 10(11)).