Whitehall will listen if we have a clear agenda

3 December 2009 | By Michael Nutley

We’ve known for some time that the Government would wait until the last possible moment to call a general election, but last week the political commentators agreed that the phoney war was over and the real election campaigning had begun.

The turning point was seen to be the Queen’s Speech. There isn’t enough parliamentary time between now and the general election, presumed to be scheduled for early May, to get much announced in the Queen’s Speech passed as law, so the commentators have concentrated instead on the role of the announcements as electioneering. Not so much what this Government plans to do, but what it would do if elected again.

For the new media industry, this is something of a mixed blessing. It means that the Digital Economy Bill, which builds on this year’s Digital Britain report, is very unlikely to become law in this Parliament. This would be welcomed by many in the industry, including those ISPs that are unhappy with the Bill introducing disconnection for persistent file sharers. Those voicing civil liberties concerns about the powers the Bill grants for regulations against file-sharers to be extended without being voted into law will also be relieved.

To be set against this is the fact that a Digital Economy Bill exists at all. It doubtless fails to please everyone and downright alarms some, but it is the result of extensive consultation with the industry, led by someone who worked in and understands that industry. It’s said that nations get the leaders they deserve; did we as an industry get the legislation we deserved? Or to put it another way, if we didn’t get what we wanted in the Digital Economy Bill, how much of that was our fault for not explaining what we wanted clearly and coherently enough?

The internet is revolutionising existing industries and creating new ones. Does it make sense to try to reconcile the differing agendas of all the businesses in all these sectors into one?

The reason why this matters is, of course, the possibility of a change of government at the election. We’ve yet to hear much about Conservative policy for the digital economy, but clearly the time to be lobbying the Tories is now, when they’re looking to secure votes. More than that, political experts point to the fact that new governments have a honeymoon when they like to demonstrate their reforming zeal by pushing through change. But the list of changes they can push through is a short one, and every industry and interest group in the country wants its cause on that list. The question we need to ask ourselves is whether there are things that a new government could do that would benefit the majority of digital businesses, and how those needs can be presented in such a way that they get onto David Cameron’s ‘to do’ list above those of much more practised lobbyists. The clock is ticking.

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