Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Baroness Parminter and Baroness Whitaker

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, in speaking to this group of amendments, I declare my interest as president of the South Downs Society, which co-ordinates NGO representations to the South Downs National Park Authority. The risks to our national parks were well rehearsed at Second Reading and I do not propose to repeat them.

My noble friend Lord Judd and other noble Lords have tabled an amendment to delete Clause 8. I have a great deal of sympathy with that. On past history, the national parks have done much to facilitate broadband, and delays in its rollout have not been caused by them, as my noble friend Lord Adonis said in such comprehensive detail, but I sense a strong concern in your Lordships’ House about the rollout of broadband in rural areas. If the Minister is not persuaded that Clause 8 is unnecessary, I support my noble friend Lord Adonis in Amendment 59B to safeguard our national parks by restricting activity only to broadband, and my own amendment, Amendment 59C, to further protect our national parks by codifying the installation of any equipment with an opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny.

The Minister gave some assurances in her closing speech at Second Reading, but I think that more precision is needed. She also said that,

“it is absolutely vital to ensure that rural areas have broadband”.—[Official Report, 8/1/13; col. 107.]

As it is broadband that she is concerned with, she will surely accept that Amendment 59B makes it clear that these easements should be available only to procure broadband equipment, and if there is parliamentary approval for the response to the mandatory consultation, as the amendment provides, Parliament will have the opportunity to check that best practice is followed.

Amendment 59C in my name strengthens the proposal of my noble friend Lord Adonis in Amendment 59A for a statutory code by again bringing Parliament into the process of verifying best practice. The code would ensure that there is no postcode lottery for different national parks; all will have the standards of the best. It will make it easier for the installers of broadband equipment to plan and to have clear expectations from local authorities. It is also entirely right that Parliament, which passed the great 1949 Act setting up the national parks, should have the opportunity to consider fully and scrutinise any modification of its intentions via affirmative resolution.

These amendments set out minimum requirements from which we should not resile if we are to give out the pro-broadband message while preserving the essential nature of our most cherished national landscapes. I beg to move.

[Baroness Parminter]

My Lords, I support the deletion of Clause 8 and in so doing I thank my noble friends Lord Greaves and Lord Marlesford, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for joining me in this. The debate today is complicated, given that we are considering the Government’s proposed approach to deliver broadband to remote and special areas through new secondary legislation that was set out in a consultation published only last night, which they argue requires changes to be made to primary legislation as set out in Clause 8.

The first issue for the Committee to consider must be whether a case has been made for any legislative changes. The examples given by the Government in support of this legislative change do not, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has said, demonstrate convincingly that national parks and AONB planning authorities are the barrier to delivering the broadband that rural communities want and rural economies need. The few examples of broadband planning delays cited are in areas outside national parks and AONBs. Indeed, the argument used in the Government’s consultation document to support changing the law is not that planning authorities in national parks and AONBs have been to date a barrier, rather it is the need to cut the costs of deploying broadband infrastructure to enable it to go as far as it can.

The second issue is whether the secondary legislation the Government want to introduce requires the proposed changes to be made to the primary legislation. Of particular concern in that regard is why there is a need to change the long-standing duties in national park and AONB legislation. I can see the argument to add a further consideration to the Communications Act 2003 for the Secretary of State to have regard to promote economic growth at the same time as other existing duties, which is what subsection (1) of Clause 8 proposes. This means that the Secretary of State would be obliged to consider the need to promote economic growth alongside and, crucially, give equal weight to, other considerations, which would include having regard to the need to protect the environment, and in particular to conserve the natural beauty and amenity of the countryside. However, I fail to see why the following eight subsections of Clause 8 are necessary to ensure that these pieces of legislation are consistent with the amended Communications Act.

I am not convinced that amending the Communications Act requires the disapplication of the duty to have regard to conserving beauty in other pieces of primary legislation. If this House is to accept changes to the legislation, the Minister must make clear the legal case for the necessity of such a disproportionate measure. It is a disproportionate approach, which not only sets a dangerous precedent for weakening the protection given to national parks and AONBs but creates the impression that the Government are intent on nibbling away at protection policies for our most valued landscapes and countryside; protection which has been in place since 1949. This approach makes the commitment in the recent National Planning Policy Framework to give great weight to conserving landscape and scenic beauty in national parks and AONBs sound very hollow indeed and is disproportionate, given that national parks authorities are not inflexible regulators, bystanders or obstacles to broadband rollout. National parks authorities are leading the development of local broadband programmes, with the New Forest National Park Authority supporting parish councils in a joint bid to Defra’s very welcome £20 million rural communications broadband fund and the Lake District National Park sitting on a Cumbria-wide steering group aiming to get superfast broadband coverage to 90% of the county, including the national park.

It is right that local planning authorities are involved in decisions which balance the need for broadband and countryside protection. Cabinets are big and intrusive—nearly two metres tall—and the noble Lord, Lord True, gave some excellent examples at Second Reading of insensitive siting. Efforts to camouflage cabinets green are wasted when operators such as Virgin and BT use them as advertising hoardings to promote their campaign that, “Fibre broadband is here”. In Guildford this week, Virgin Media is having to remove 200 posters on such street cabinets. Experience to date hardly suggests that operators are going to site in the least visible places, unless they are under some duty to consult. It is right that planning authorities work with providers to ensure that the effects on the landscape are minimised while delivering the economic and social benefits we need.

If the Government intend to regulate to temporarily remove the current requirement for communication providers to seek prior approval from local planning authorities in protected areas before permitted development can go ahead—that seems to be their direction of travel—I, too, would support a code of best siting practice between operators and local planning authorities to show how broadband undertakers should work with local authorities on siting. The Government’s consultation does not make it clear whether the code they propose is voluntary or mandatory. It should be mandatory, to give operators the certainty they claim they want in planning procedures and give local authorities the certainty that their legitimate concerns will be heard. As the Government seek to champion the speedy and cost-effective rollout of broadband to deliver economic growth, it should reflect on the need to ensure that the measures they propose do not unwittingly compromise the visual amenity of rural areas which underpin rural economies.

The impact assessment for this legislation and the Minister’s remarks at Second Reading make it clear that the Government have no idea of the number of overhead lines, poles and masts which could end up pepper-potting our most treasured landscapes if these changes go through. The cumulative visual impact of broadband infrastructure could have a chilling effect on the rural economy. Of people who were asked why they went to the Peak District, 85% said it was because of the visual appearance. However, the proposed regulations would leave broadband infrastructure siting at the discretion of the operator. It is crucial that the consultation period on the proposed regulations identifies the scale of infrastructure that rural areas may need to accommodate. Every step must be taken to ensure effective dialogue with local authorities about siting, or the cumulative effect of these changes could undermine rural tourism and local economies.

In that regard, it is worth reminding ourselves of the significant investment made by Ofgem and electricity distributors over recent years to enhance the beauty of treasured landscapes by burying overhead lines. They are doing this because local people recognise the value to local tourism and the economy of maintaining the visual amenity in their most precious landscapes. They have already spent millions removing 223 kilometres of overhead electricity lines and now Ofgem has given approval for £500 million of investment until 2021 to underground more lines. While electricity companies are working with local communities to protect valued landscapes from visual scarring and ensure that rural tourism can flourish, it would be inconsistent, to say the least, if government broadband policy allowed the insensitive siting of broadband cabinets, poles, lines and masts to disfigure the areas and undermine the tourism industry.

We all fully support the provision of broadband to rural communities, but this clause is a disproportionate response to deliver that. The clause should be removed and I hope that the Minister will use the time before Report to reflect on that, and on the merit of a statutory code of practice showing how broadband operators should work with local authorities on siting in protected areas and thus deliver the broadband that we and—crucially—rural communities and businesses want.