They're gradually crawling out of the woodwork. Richard Balfe sent me his response (dated 14th November, but arriving on the 21st). By his own admission, he has no idea what this issue is all about.
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Richard Balfe starts out agreeing that caution is required. He goes on to say that he has problems when professionals "blind him with science". He also says he is suspicious when large corporations want to patent intellectual property over a broad range of inventions. He thinks that the best way to have things work is with "fairly free competition" (which must take account of the time taken to design a process).
He then ends by saying "I will be honest with you, this is not my area of expertise", but he's aware of the things I've highlighted when he votes on legislation in the Parliament.
My take on this is that he's taking a non-committal view point, because he doesn't know which side of the fence he should sit. He also doesn't show any intention to educate and inform himself on these issues before he votes. I think this is a cornerstone of democrasy: one should vote "one's conscience". That is, vote which ever way you think is best. If you don't know which way is best, then your vote becomes arbitrary, which then makes the vote either random, or more likely subject to marketed influence. Let's hope he's influenced by letters, rather than the promise of corporation profits.