"My Lords, my noble friend has got his answer to Amendment 26 completely wrong, particularly so far as website operators are concerned. I do not care a fig about knowing whether a comment is defamatory; it is obvious that “The food was filthy” is defamatory. What I want to know …..." Lord Lucas - View Speech
"My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for that explanation. Our noble friend Lord Ahmad has been doing a superb job, and I have been immensely impressed. I had assumed that my noble friend Lord McNally was silent because he was serving time in the penalty box …..." Lord Lucas - View Speech
"My Lords, speaking again as a web operator, I do not know any way of establishing a person’s identity just because they are posting. One could establish a web identity, but that may have a very fuzzy relationship with any individual. If someone posts, gives me an e-mail address and …..." Lord Lucas - View Speech
"My Lords, I am slightly sad that this privilege should not be extended to the Daily Mail, if one can imagine how that would work. I am concerned that the definition of “journal” should be wide enough. There are a lot of what might be called open-access journals now, …..." Lord Lucas - View Speech
"My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for arriving late for a group in which I have amendments, but I am not fussed about having missed Amendment 10A. These are only for discussion anyway. I am also delighted that the Minister is not a lawyer, no more than I. We …..." Lord Lucas - View Speech
"My Lords, perhaps I may first ask a question on the matter raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. The Minister said in his reply that he thought that it would now, under this Bill, be fine if someone reading the letter could refer to the …..." Lord Lucas - View Speech
"My Lords, my noble friend in his speech, and my other noble friend subsequently, convinced me that my Amendment 16A was misguided, so I shall not pursue it. However, I will ask my noble friend how he thinks his Amendment 14, and in particular the words “reasonably believed”, will apply …..." Lord Lucas - View Speech
"My Lords, I shall address my amendments in this group and reiterate that I have a considerable interest to declare in that I run the Good Schools Guide and, therefore, a website on which such comments are regularly posted.
"Absolutely—the expense should be on the citizen who, having made the comment, is the target of the defamation action; but the website should not be forced to take down the comment just by the threat of a defamation action against the person who originated the comment. Otherwise, it becomes all …..." Lord Lucas - View Speech
"We are dealing with the web operator as a conduit and not as a publisher. If I want to make a particular statement about a company that I feel has wronged me, I will do so using public media such as Facebook, Twitter or other sites on which I might …..." Lord Lucas - View Speech