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By Sonya Rabbitte, 14 July 2000 00:30

NEWS The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill could be law by October despite major amendments tabled by opposition Lords, according to a leading lobbyist. Tory peer, Lord John Cope, said he was confident the government now recognised the flaws in the original Bill and that they would support all the recent amendments. Late on Wednesday, the House of Lords voted in two amendments, which will establish a technical advisory committee to oversee practical implementation of the Bill, and will offer ISPs "fair" compensation towards the cost of monitoring email. Lord Cope told silicon.com that he did not envisage the government radically changing these amendments when the Bill returned to the House of Commons. "The Bill was badly designed, it is now better but not a perfect Bill, but we have been able to improve it. It's not as damaging as it could have been, " he told silicon.com. The government is anxious to make the Bill law, by 4 October, ahead of an EU act on human rights, which could affect the Bill's content Tom Wills-Sandford, director of the Federation for Electronic Industry (FEI) welcomed the introduction of the statutory technical board, however, he said the government's calculation of £20m contribution over three years - based on a report produced by the Smith Group and commissioned by the Home Office - was inadequate. "We feel that the widely discredited Smith report is absolutely no basis on which the government can produce the figure of £20m. We would imagine that this is nowhere near enough money for ISPs," he told silicon.com. Tim Pearson, chairman of the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) agreed that the government had severely under estimated the cost of monitoring email. He said that while the ISP industry was divided on certain aspects of the Bill, there was an industry consensus that the cost issue had not been adequately tackled. Shaun Fensom - founder of Poptel who told silicon.com earlier this week that the ISP is considering relocating outside the UK - said that the latest amendments had not affected their decision. "Our customers have legitimate reasons why they might come into conflict with the government. We are forced to respond to this. Some contribution to the cost would be helpful but it does not alter the fact that email will still be monitored." A Home Office spokesman said the government was satisfied with this week's amendments and hoped to pass the Bill soon.