The Digital Economy Bill has passed its Third Reading in the Commons after a paltry two hours of debate. This is one of the most significant pieces of legislation in the past 12 years for, increasingly, the digital economy is the economy. Yet it is indicative of the attitude of this dying Parliament that a mere 236 MPs – just over a third – turned up for the last minute horse-trading. The Second Reading the day before was worse: at one point during that debate just 14 MPs were in attendance – while 5000 concerned citizens discussed the proceedings on Twitter.  

More than 20,000 letters were written to MPs urging full scrutiny. Reservations were expressed in the House that the Government had timed the Bill’s passage so as to avoid a proper debate. Incredibly, Tory Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt admitted that the Bill was flawed but agreed to support it as the Tories could amend it after the election. Indeed, the Bill was approved on the understanding that many of its key clauses would not become law until they had been reassessed by the next Parliament. By any standards, this is a bizarre way to pass legislation.

There were some minor concessions: for example, the plan to tax telephone lines and many of the Ofcom proposals were abandoned. However, these concessions were not connected to the anti-piracy measures that have so enraged public opinion. The controversial Clause 18, which would have given the Government sweeping powers to block websites was removed – only to be replaced with an amendment to Clause 8 which achieves much the same thing. And yet this supine Parliament has passed the Bill by a margin of 189 to 47.

It is no secret that this Government is addicted to legislation. In January this year, the Liberal Democrats revealed that 4,289 new criminal offences had been created between 1997 and 2009 – approximately one for every day that they had been in office. Under Blair, 27 new offences were created a month: under Brown, this has risen to 33 a month. Old habits die hard: faced with the very real possibility of electoral defeat, Labour wants to squeeze out one more “bloated Bill” from “the sausage factory that Parliament has become.” 

Curiously, they feel the need to do this in full knowledge of the fact that the Digital Economy Bill is considered flawed by both its supporters and its opponents and will have to be radically overhauled before it becomes workable.

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