Lord Lloyd-Webber issued a clarion call on Thursday for a crackdown on illegal downloading as he attacked the internet as a “Somalia of unregulated theft and piracy”.

The composer behind Cats and Phantom of the Opera told the House of Lords that Britain was rapidly losing its place as a fertile environment for creative talent. “The question that occurs to me is whether, in 10 years time, Britain will be a place that the Beatles could have emerged from,” he says.