Broadband minister says Digital Economy Act won’t be repealed
The Government has named its broadband and Digital Economy ministers today but they may have already caused dissension in ranks.
The new minister for broadband, Conservative MP Jeremy Hunt, has laid down the law and said there will be no repeal of the Digital Economy Act.
His Liberal Democrat coalition partners just this week called for the bill to be repealed and re-examined but, despite this, Hunt has claimed the Act will stay as it is.
He told news website Paid Content: "We're not going to repeal it."
Instead Hunt said he planned on implementing the Act as it was and waiting to see how things went before considering any changes.
Today Hunt was named as the Government's minister for broadband alongside side his role of minister for culture, media and sport with Ed Vaizey taking up the role of implementing the Digital Economy Act in its current form.
The Digital Economy Bill was passed as an Act during the wash-up phase of the last parliament and received much criticism for being voted through after less than two hours of debate.
ISPs and internet companies, including the likes of Google, BT and TalkTalk all came out against controversial aspects of the bill which involved site blocking and cutting off connections of illegal filesharers.
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Leader of the Liberal Democrats and now Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg made a pledge before the election that if his party were to get into power they would repeal the Act and have "the issues revisted."
Click here to read the coalition Government's policies on tech.
Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.
Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.