INVESTING FOR THE FUTURE: BUILDING TOMORROW'S ECONOMY TODAY

Digital economy bill

Ensuring a world-class digital future following the Digital Britain White Paper , published on 16 June 2009, setting out the Government's ambition to secure the UK's position as one of the world's leading digital knowledge economies and take forward a new, more active industrial policy to maximise the benefits from the digital revolution by:

• delivering a universally available broadband in the UK by 2012 through a public fund, including funds released from the digital television switchover help scheme;
• giving the sectoral regulator, Ofcom, two new duties: first, to promote investment in infrastructure and content alongside its duties to promote competition; and second, to carry out a full assessment of the UK's communications infrastructure every two years; to ensure that the UK has a first class and resilient communications infrastructure;
• establishing the necessary enabling powers for new commissioning bodies providing strong multi media news in the Nations, regionally and locally and update the Channel 4 Corporation's remit. This would help create the environment for continued investment in, and creation of, high quality and innovative content, including necessary changes in relation to public service broadcasting;
• ensuring that all national broadcast radio stations are digital from the end of 2015, by making changes to the existing radio licensing regime to enable digital coverage to be extended, encourage investment by the commercial sector, alongside the BBC, in new digital content, and revise the existing regulatory and multiplex licences;
• creating a robust legal and regulatory framework to combat illegal file sharing and other forms of online copyright infringement and give Ofcom a specific new responsibility to significantly reduce this practice, including two specific obligations on Internet Service Providers: the notification of unlawful activity and, for alleged serial-infringers, collation of data to allow rights holders to obtain court orders to force the release of personal details, enabling legal action to be taken against them;
• implementing the recommendations of the Byron Review  published in June 2008, to put age ratings of computer games on a statutory footing for ratings of 12 years and above. This will be achieved through the adoption of a new and strengthened system of classification for boxed video games with a strong UK based statutory layer of regulation, ensuring protection for children.

Energy bill

Moving decisively to a low carbon economy while maintaining the security and diversity of electricity supplies by:

• introducing a financial incentive, funded by electricity suppliers, to support up to four Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) commercial-scale demonstration projects.

Flood and water management bill

Helping to address the immediate effects of climate change by strengthening the UK's resilience to the threat of flooding and drought, and reducing the risk of disruption to householders, businesses and the economy that flooding and drought can cause, by:

• implementing the recommendations of Sir Michael Pitt's report 'Learning Lessons from the 2007 Floods'  through the Flood and Water Management Bill which was published in draft for consultation on 21 April .
• protecting homes and businesses from flooding and coastal erosion by improving the Government's ability to manage the risk of flooding through clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved in flood risk management and giving the lead to local authorities in managing the risk of all local causes of floods;
• placing a duty on all relevant bodies to co-operate and share information in support of flood risk management;
• introducing an improved, risk-based approach to reservoir safety, extending to all reservoirs which could pose a risk to public safety if they were to fail;
• encouraging sustainability by requiring developers to include sustainable drainage wherever practicable in new housing and business developments, built to standards which would help to reduce flood damage and improve water quality;
• updating existing protection against drought, increasing the scope and flexibility of water companies to restrict non-essential domestic uses of water during droughts;
• protecting against the threat to continuation of water supplies posed by a water company becoming insolvent;
• the Government intends to make changes in other related areas when Parliamentary time allows. The draft Bill extends to England and Wales.
   

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