Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Harding of Winscombe and Lord Harlech

Report stage
Wednesday 12th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, before I begin to speak to this group, I declare my interest as a land and business owner in Wales with various wayleaves.

In Committee, several of your Lordships expressed support for an amendment to facilitate the more effective use of telegraph poles situated on private land. My noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay explained that the Government were looking into this. Subsequent discussions with stakeholders clarified the significant benefits to which changes in this area can lead and the barriers that currently prevent apparatus such as telegraph poles being used to their best effect.

I also thank my noble friend Lady Harding, whose insightful contributions have been of great assistance. Based on these discussions, I am pleased to bring forward Amendment 18 to improve the existing regime which regulates overhead networks contained in Part 11 of the code.

Before turning to the amendment itself, I will explain how Part 11 operates. Part 11 confers rights on operators to keep apparatus on or over land. I will refer to them as main operators. The apparatus with which this part is concerned is typically telegraph poles.

The rights conferred by Part 11 permit these main operators to install and keep lines connected to their poles, which may also pass over neighbouring land. These rights are automatic but subject to specific height restrictions, a notice requirement and a right to object in certain circumstances. However, while the Part 11 regime allows a main operator to fly lines from these poles, it does not permit them to upgrade or carry out works to the poles that may be needed to deliver gigabit-capable connections—for example, running cable wire from the base of the pole to the top. Similarly, the regime does not permit operators other than the main operator to fly their own lines from the poles, creating an obstacle to apparatus sharing.

Amendment 18 is designed to address both gaps. It extends the right in paragraph 74 of the Electronic Communications Code to install and keep lines to operators other than the main operator, provided that the main operator consents to this, subject to the same height restrictions, notice requirement and right to object already in place for the main operator. Sharing the use of these poles will not only speed up the pace of deployment but reduce the need for additional installations and their associated impacts. In addition, the amendment will confer new rights on either operator to upgrade or carry out any other works to the pole so that the lines flown from them can deliver gigabit-capable connections.

Among other things, this change will ensure that, as my noble friend Lady Harding raised at Second Reading, the benefits of other rights that we are introducing to permit greater sharing of underground ducts will extend to overhead networks, by allowing upgraded fibre from such ducts to be rolled up the pole and subsequently strung between the poles to deliver gigabit connections.

The new rights will be subject to specific conditions, intended to protect the interests of individuals affected by them. First, exercise of these rights cannot have more than a minimal adverse impact on the appearance of the pole. Secondly, exercise of these rights cannot have more than a minimal adverse impact on the land on which the pole is kept. Thirdly, these rights cannot be used to carry out works that will cause loss, damage or expense to any person with an interest in the land on which the pole is kept.

In addition to the above, operators entering land on which a pole is kept, to exercise any Part 11 right, must have the occupier’s permission. This does not need to be a written agreement, but it is important that operators obtain consent before entering private land, a point raised by my noble friend Lady Harding in Committee. For main operators, access rights may already be in place but, where they are not and where other operators wish to exercise their new rights, permission to enter the land must be obtained. I beg to move.

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I declare a new interest as an adviser on the telecoms market to Octopus Ventures. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Harlech on his new role and welcome my noble friend Lord Kamall to a small, select club of people with a shared passion for healthcare and telegraph poles. One can find a number of us in the Chamber today. I thank both my noble friends, and the staff in DCMS, for the extremely constructive way that they have approached this Bill and thank my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, the predecessor of my noble friend Lord Kamall, for his excellent work on this Bill and more broadly on the DCMS brief.

I am encouraged by this amendment and very grateful for it. It addresses the specific issue that I and others raised in Committee. With that, I also thank my noble friends Lord Vaizey and Lady Stowell, the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, for their work. This might be a small and technical amendment, but it has been a real team effort.

I have two clarifying questions. As we discussed in Committee, the devil is in the detail of this, and we share the same goal of being able to lay the fibre cable up the telegraph pole and from one pole to another. Perhaps your Lordships will humour my two very specific questions. First, the amendment gives operators the right to share the existing pole infrastructure

“with the agreement of the main operator.”

Can the Minister explain what proof of permission from a main operator an operator wishing to avail themselves of these provisions will be required to secure? Also, how easy will it be for them to do so? For example, will the normal provisions of PIA be an acceptable route to do that?