Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Debate between Baroness Falkner of Margravine and Lord Clement-Jones

Consideration of Commons amendments & Lords Hansard
Thursday 4th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I join the Minister in congratulating our telecoms providers on rising to the challenge of providing relatively comprehensive connectivity to the nation in response to Covid.

However, I am reluctant to speak to Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, other than to say that I do not support it, for the reason that it appears to place additional burdens and apportion impractical and potentially onerous rights. It would be injected into the Bill in its closing stages when we do not have the capacity as a House either to examine the issues or to reflect on the Electronic Telecommunications Code and the impact of the new rights being given to operators. My approach is that it is best not to introduce additional complexities to Bills during ping-pong.

However, I intervened on the Bill as far back as 19 May 2020 with my amendment to prevent vendors defined by the National Cyber Security Centre as high-risk. From the outset, I welcomed the aims of the Bill. My intentions were narrow and were to protect our critical infrastructure and, by definition, since that is built for the longer term—20, 30 or perhaps 40 years —to protect it from being compromised by firms that today might seem benign but in the long term may be able to jeopardise our security as technology becomes more complex.

My amendment was described as being anti-Huawei, although its wording was much broader. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to other noble Lords who joined me in that endeavour because I was constantly being told by the Government Benches that the amendment was inappropriate. However, the noble Lords, Lord Alton of Liverpool, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, and Lord Adonis, stuck with me as we continued to argue that Huawei or, indeed, any other future telecoms provider that might jeopardise our national security should be removed from being able to operate with impunity in this country.

I truly regret that the Bill was delayed in our seeking those safeguards, but that is what we exist for here as a scrutinising Chamber. We give the Government an opportunity to think again and that is what has happened through those amendments. We currently have before us in the Telecommunications (Security) Bill the right place to discuss those matters as we go forward, and the Government have also seen the light of day on the use of Huawei.

I therefore thank the Minister for her openness throughout the year in having given us valuable time and discussing where we might go with our amendment. I thank all noble Lords who participated in the Bill for having put up with us and a slightly otiose amendment. Nevertheless, we got there in the end.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comprehensive introduction. I agree with her emphasis on the importance of internet services and the need to eliminate digital exclusion. It is hard to think what the consequences would have been if we had suffered this pandemic just 10 years ago, when our broadband services were less extensive and much slower than now.

In the name of inclusivity, I welcome the first part of today’s business, Motion A. Throughout the course of the Bill, my noble friend Lord Fox, the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Liddle, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and others have been arguing for as inclusive a definition as possible of those who could be regarded as tenants, without straying into the territory of licensees or licences. It includes those with assured shorthold tenancies or assured tenancy agreements, as well as students living in short-term lets, where a tenant has, or tenants have, exclusive possession of the let property.

We have been concerned throughout to ensure that all tenancies such as renewable tenancies are included, even if they are not, strictly speaking, leases and that there should not be any grey areas that need to be interpreted by the courts. I am pleased that the Government have now produced an even more inclusive definition than the one that I argued for on Report. My sincere thanks go to the Minister and the Bill team for their care and consideration on what we have always regarded as an important issue.

However, I do not welcome Motion B. The original purpose of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, which was strongly supported on these Benches—I remind the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, that it was introduced not at ping-pong but on Report—was to ensure that the code is fit for the purpose of delivering the Government’s manifesto commitment of broadband capable of 1 gigabit per second to every home by 2025. The need for this has become even more important, particularly since the Covid-19 lockdown has demonstrated our increasing dependence on good broadband connectivity for remote working, education and many other aspects of life, as the Minister mentioned.

Sadly, it is clear that the Government are backtracking in their ambitions—the 2025 1 gigabit per second target has been watered down and the budget for rollout expenditure slashed by two-thirds. Even so, it is clear that the Electronic Communications Code needs regular review to ensure that the Government’s objective, however watered down, is met and that operators have all the rights under the code that they need.

My noble friend Lord Fox rightly commented on a universal service obligation of a miserable 10 megabits per second and I completely agree with him. However, looking to the future, I am glad that during the course of the Bill we have started a genuine debate around whether we can describe broadband as a utility and what the appropriate rights of entry are.

I am also grateful to the noble Baroness for answering what the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, described as a blizzard of questions on telecoms supply chain diversification in her extremely informative letter last month. Some of the work being carried out on open RAN, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Fox, is ground- breaking for the interoperability and competitiveness of our 5G networks. It is good to see that international collaboration is regarded as essential and is ongoing.

However, at the end of the day I am left with a sense of bafflement. This has been a ridiculously modest Bill, given the challenges of the broadband and 5G rollout ahead. Of course, as the Minister has mentioned, we now have Access to Land: Consultation on Changes to the Electronic Communications Code, which was issued in January. Notwithstanding this Bill, it seems clear the Government think that further changes are needed to clarify the position on rights to upgrade and share. Why not an earlier consultation? Why were these issues not considered before this piece of legislation? Are these long-standing questions or are they thoughts that have arisen during the course of the Bill? Is there another Bill on the way? We know from the representations made that the operators are calling for other changes that are not included in the Bill or the consultation.

I have another quote from Matt Warman. In his introduction to the consultation he says:

“The government is committed to ensuring that the Code is fit for purpose in order to deliver our digital connectivity targets.”


That is excellent. A review of the kind envisaged in our amendment would have been perfect for that purpose. The Bill has taken an inordinate time to get through, but it is clear that more reforms are in the pipeline. The question remains: could we have been spending our time better and enacting a more comprehensive Bill with a wider range of revisions, instead of this piecemeal approach?

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Debate between Baroness Falkner of Margravine and Lord Clement-Jones

3rd reading & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 28th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I doubt very much whether the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, could ever possibly watch from the sidelines—but that is an aside.

After an unusually long gap between Report and Third Reading, we are sending the Bill back to the Commons in much better shape than when it arrived. It is still, however, a modest Bill with much to be modest about, to coin a phrase. We on these Benches have never thought that it was adequate in itself to deliver the ambition of one-gigabit-per-second broadband capability by 2025, and of course the goalposts themselves have now been moved by the Government. However, we now have the consultation on changes to the Electronic Communications Code, which is a step forward. I do hope that the Government will see the wisdom of retaining the review mechanism of the code in Clause 3, which the House inserted on Report, which can assess after that what other measures might be needed. We on these Benches will continue to press the Government on their electoral promises.

We also stressed during the passage of the Bill that we would like to see broadband treated as a utility, as with gas, water and electricity, with all the necessary and equivalent rights of entry. The last year could not have demonstrated more graphically the essential nature of good broadband to all our lives, alongside, if not ahead of, all those other utilities. We on these Benches advocate strongly for the universal service obligation to be raised to 25 or 30 megabits per second—that is, superfast levels—which should be treated as the minimum for these rural areas.

That said, I thank the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, together with her Bill team, as ever, for their very good nature. I also thank her for her kind words, good nature and patience with us all throughout the Bill and for her willingness to listen, even if she did not always accept our arguments. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his collaboration and co-operation during the course of the Bill, which showed how we always achieve better results by cross-party working.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for raising some extremely important questions with reference to human rights abuses and modern slavery. His campaigning has clearly changed the Government’s approach and, despite what the Minister has said, it might become even more relevant in the context of the Telecommunications (Security) Bill, which, as we have heard, will come to this House shortly. Of course, the acid test will come next Tuesday on the Trade Bill ping-pong. This is of great significance in terms of the relationship between human rights and trade as a whole. Like him and many other noble Lords, I urge the Government to reconsider their position ahead of that vote.

Lastly, I thank Sarah Pughe in our whips’ office for her valuable help, and my noble friends Lord Fox and Lady Northover, who have contributed so knowledgeably throughout on different aspects of the Bill that they have given me a very easy run when leading on it.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a privilege to make the concluding speech for the Cross Benches on this Bill today. I place on record our thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the Bill team, who have been so ready to engage with our concerns, albeit to limited avail in the end.

It was the late Robin Cook who, as Foreign Secretary, first set out a framework for the UK to have an ethical foreign policy in 1997. Given where the UK is now—debating sanctions only an hour ago against Russia in defence of human rights and democracy, standing up for the rights of people in Hong Kong and shortly to be in the process of discussing the National Security and Investment Bill—I think he would have been pleased with the progress made in the intervening period, not least with our efforts to prevent Chinese commercial enterprises, under the control of that country’s national security laws, from participating in egregious human rights violations and cashing in their profits in this country.

I first spoke to my amendment preventing firms that are a security threat operating our critical national infrastructure on 19 May 2020 in Committee on this Bill. In the intervening eight months and numerous debates, it was never my intention—and I think I speak for all other noble Lords who have led this charge; the noble Lords, Lord Alton, Lord Forsyth and Lord Adonis, joined by the Front-Bench speakers of the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party—to prevent the necessary tools needed to roll out broadband to those who need it. Our concerns were well grounded and have, regrettably, come to pass as more information on the treatment of Chinese Uighurs comes to light.

It is also the co-operation between the House of Lords and the other place, so ably led by my noble friend Lord Alton, on these numerous amendments that has allowed us to help the Government to think through where the balance lies in relation to commerce and complicity in human rights abuses that has helped us reach this place today with our amendments. It is now for the other place to decide where that balance lies. I wish the Bill well.