Consumer Rights Bill
Debate between Baroness Jolly and Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, a requirement for the switching of communications providers to be receiving provider-led—RPL—is part of the EU Connected Continent package. The European Parliament’s First Reading version would amend the universal services directive to require RPL switching. I assure noble Lords that the UK is engaging actively in those discussions to ensure the best outcomes for UK consumers.
The Government have considerable sympathy for RPL switching in the UK. In the Connectivity, Content and Consumers paper published last year, we emphasised that we want that across the board. I am very pleased to say that, as my noble friend said, RPL switching already operates for fixed-line voice and broadband services delivered over the BT Openreach network, although it does not yet operate for mobile services or for pay TV.
Ofcom has the power to mandate RPL switching for all communications services. In July 2014, it called for inputs from stakeholders on consumer switching. Ofcom announced that it is considering mandating RPL switching for mobile services and bundles of services, including pay TV and services over the Kcom network. The Ofcom work is essential to ensure that we get any new rules right first time, so I welcome my noble friend’s interest in consumer switching but, given the good work done so far, Ofcom’s ongoing consultation and the response to it to be published before the end of the year, I ask him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
My Lords, I am encouraged by the news of Ofcom’s consultation nearing completion. I should point out that Ofcom has been trying to do that since 2007. There is a danger that Ofcom and the Government are hiding behind each other. However, I accept what my noble friend said, I am grateful for the support that I have received, and I am happy at this stage to withdraw my amendment.
Consumer Rights Bill
Debate between Baroness Jolly and Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
Briefly, I lend my support to this amendment. Most of the points have already been made but wherever uncompetitive activity is trying to distort a market and deprive market entry to competitors it should be exposed and eliminated. Internet access should be open and consumers buying that service expect it to be so. Can the Government really achieve their objective of an open market without considering this amendment? Selective blocking is abhorrent to innovation and generally has uncompetitive motives. Consumers are not fully aware of the practices when ISPs and mobile providers undertake inhibiting their services. Ofcom has already indicated that it would welcome more clout against the blocking of or economic deterrents for internet services. It recognises that these practices should be unacceptable. The voluntary code of practice should be given statutory support.
Baroness Jolly
The noble Lord, Lord Deben, says that this is a tricky issue and he is clearly right. One of the tricky bits of this amendment is that many aspects of internet behaviour can be fitted under these amendments. The ones in my comments relate to those of the noble Lord, Lord Best, in which people using voice over internet protocol have been wrongly charged for it. Nobody wants to see that situation but I question whether there is a need to change the law to tackle such behaviour as we have good and robust protections in place for consumers.
I also understand that companies which block services such as Skype no longer offer packages that do so, except on legacy tariffs, so these terms and conditions should not apply. I also understand that the regulator Ofcom has been in dialogue with the providers, and that there is a commitment to review the wording in their terms and conditions to ensure that these are not misinterpreted in this way.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about the assessment of the two-tier internet. The Government’s intention is to ensure an open, secure and safe internet. Where some services are blocked, we want to see transparency. However, our experience is that competition is working. The proposals in the US are informed by the US market. The UK’s market is very different, so we watch with interest to see what the FCC will do.
More broadly, the Government and industry through the Broadband Stakeholder Group have done a great deal of work together to ensure that there is greater transparency. For example, two industry codes of practice have now been developed. This, coupled with the UK’s highly competitive telecoms market, has been very successful in ensuring that there is no consumer detriment caused by traffic management problems.
I hope that this gives some reassurance to noble Lords proposing the amendments. However, given their wide applicability, it makes an awful lot of sense to convene a meeting on this issue with interested parties before Report. Therefore, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Jolly
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones for tabling these amendments and to my other noble friend for speaking to them on his behalf.
I realise that these amendments are closely related but I will take each in turn, starting with Amendment 57A. Noble Lords asked why we are not changing the scope of the Unfair Contract Terms Act in the Bill to apply to business-to-business intellectual property contracts. This is because this Bill is about consumers. We want to have a one-stop shop where consumers can go to find their rights. Adding business-to-business contracts would dilute this for consumers, making the law more complex and reducing its accessibility. Having rights for businesses in the Unfair Terms part of the Consumer Rights Bill may also be confusing for businesses.
We sympathise with the situation in which some small businesses find themselves. However, we have not yet seen evidence that amending the Unfair Contract Terms Act in this way would address the issue. We would need substantial, quantitative evidence of a problem to make this change. We would also need to be sure that amending the Unfair Contract Terms Act in this way would solve the problem my noble friend raises without unintended negative consequences.
My noble friend Lord Stoneham raised the issue of consultation, effectively saying that we do not need consultation, we need action. We need to be sure that we get this right, so we need to consider all interests. The creative industries are too important to rush this. They are really critical to the UK economy. The department is aware that this is a live issue, but the Bill is not the place to solve it.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Is my noble friend saying that in recognising the issue, the department is prepared to initiate some form of consultation to put this inequity right?
Baroness Jolly
Yes, there was a meeting and the outcome was agreement from the creative industries to provide evidence of the problem and to propose a solution. My noble friend has just said that she is seeing the British Brands Group tomorrow at an IP round table to discuss these issues.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
I am sorry, that is a separate issue. That is on parasitic brands. I am sorry to confuse my noble friend. Perhaps she could write to me.
Baroness Jolly
I will drop my noble friend a line. I am sorry, that has thrown me. I was given this and told exactly where to slot it in.