Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Mark Lazarowicz

Thursday 1st May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

I am pleased to say that a 21st-century service is well on its way. We have the greatest roll-out of 4G technology anywhere in the world and the major mobile providers will complete their 4G mobile coverage two years ahead of schedule. We will then take a look at how effective that is and we will continue to work with mobile operators to improve mobile coverage.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

T3. What is the Government’s current position on net neutrality, particularly given recent discussions and decisions in both Europe and the United States?

[Mr Vaizey]

I like to think that we were ahead of the curve in putting together a code of conduct, to which the major internet service providers and mobile phone companies have subscribed, under which they agreed that they would not block traffic for anti-competitive reasons. Obviously, we are carefully examining the telecoms package that the European Commission has proposed, which includes a potential regulation on net neutrality.

Supporting the Creative Economy

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Mark Lazarowicz

Thursday 13th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Osborne, particularly as I want to make a few remarks with a Scottish dimension. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins). He emphasised the importance of the cultural and creative industries, both to the entire UK and to different parts of the country. I represent Edinburgh, and the subject is of particular interest to me, my city and my constituency; Edinburgh North and Leith can claim to be a creative hub in many ways, as many who have visited it will know.

I will not run through all the positive features of my constituency, but I would like to mention a few. There have been a number of mentions of “Grand Theft Auto”. Of course, that game comes out of the Rockstar North stable, which is currently headquartered in my constituency. It is perhaps a sign of the times that, as I understand it, it is soon to move into the building occupied at the moment by The Scotsman Publications Ltd. That is an interesting example of how the emphasis in the different sections of the creative industry is moving from older to newer technologies.

I was told just this morning of the success of an e-publishing company in my constituency, so I will take the opportunity to mention that. APS Group Scotland has just won a prestigious award in the academic category at the digital book awards 2014 in New York, ahead of several hundred fellow international entrants. That is another example of success in my constituency. Of course, my city also hosts the Edinburgh festival in all its many guises.

[Mr Vaizey]

Hear, hear!

[Mark Lazarowicz]

The Minister clearly recognises that festival as a showcase of great importance, not just to Edinburgh and Scotland, but to the UK as a whole.

The main point that I want to make is that the report is about supporting the creative economy in the United Kingdom. It is important to make that point. Colleagues from outside Scotland will understand why the possible implications of Scottish independence are on the minds of most Members from Scotland—indeed, it is also quite rightly on the minds of many Members from the rest of the UK. One argument put forward by the Scottish Government in support of independence is that the cultural and creative sectors would gain more from independence than from the status quo. The Scottish Government do support the creative economy and cultural industries in many ways—I pay tribute to that—but so did previous Scottish Governments under different political leaderships.

Local authorities also recognise the incredible importance of the sector. My local authority, the Labour-led Edinburgh council—I must be fair: it is a Labour-Scottish National party council—has been supporting the creative economy in many ways for many years. That illustrates how the very success of the sector in Scotland underlines the fact that we are better together. We can be successful because we are part of the UK; we do not need an entirely separate state to nurture such successful parts of our economy. They are important for us, but they also benefit the economy of a much wider area and allow the UK as a whole to support and draw on what we are doing in Edinburgh, and in Scotland.

Some good examples of that are highlighted in the report, such as the international activities of UK Trade & Investment, which I am sure the Minister will refer to in his closing comments. Scottish creative activity can take part in that and draw from it. There is also support at the UK level for film, which benefits Scotland directly and indirectly. There is the very fact that we in Scotland have access to the UK market. Of course, if Scotland were independent, no one is suggesting that it would not be able to export from its creative economy to the rest of the UK, but the strong foundation in a UK-wide market, in which the cultural or creative economy is a major sector, is something on which we can base our activity. That applies to other sectors as well.

We also have the BBC. It is interesting to note that that is one of many areas in which those supporting independence suggest that not much would change; the BBC would just be slightly different. They are trying to get the best of the UK while also going for independence.

That is my picture of the benefits for Scotland of being part of the UK, but there are of course areas in which there could be improvements and more could be done. Mention was made of the importance of broadband. The Minister knows that I have for some time been pressing on the issue of superfast broadband in my city of Edinburgh. It is ironic that, apparently, part of Edinburgh city centre will not be included under the arrangements for additional superfast broadband that were recently announced.

The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe mentioned the advantages to his area from being close to high-speed rail. I will not hold the Minister and his Department responsible for High Speed 2, but I emphasise an important point: if the entire UK is to draw on the benefits of London’s role as a media centre for Europe, we need to have fast and efficient transport from the entire UK to London in as many ways as possible. That includes HS2 reaching Scotland and having direct high-speed lines at the earliest possible opportunity.

There are so many clear benefits to Scotland’s creative economy, and the rest of Scotland’s economy, being part of the UK. The Government have produced a wide range of useful papers by independent experts highlighting the benefits, for both Scotland and the rest of the UK, of Scotland’s involvement in the UK. It would be useful if the Minister’s Department were to consider something similar in the field of the creative economy. I put that challenge to him today. I ask him to think about it and to consider bringing forward such a report or study, allowing it to feed into the debate taking place in Scotland.

We have some travel difficulties at the moment from parts of the south to the north, but things are not too bad at the moment, so I hope that you will excuse me, Mrs Osborne, if I leave the debate a few minutes before the end of the sitting, if we go to full time. Having said that, I am glad that I have been able to contribute to the debate with something of a Scottish perspective on the creative economies of the entire UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

I do not know why the Chairman of the Select Committee would not want to talk about fashion. I would have thought that it was his top subject. As my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe said, London fashion week begins tomorrow, and I know for a fact that the British Fashion Council would welcome the Chairman of the Committee at any of its events over the next five days.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

rose—

[Mr Vaizey]

I see that the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith is keen to come in, but I must say that it is interesting that every element of the creative industries will publish reports about their value to the economy. I think that the British Fashion Council engaged Oxford Economics to make the serious point that the high-end, luxury fashion of the catwalk, which seems somewhat removed from our daily existence, sits at the apex or epicentre of a wide industry that includes photography, hairdressing, make-up and a whole range of things. Those are not official statistics, however. They come from a report produced by the British Fashion Council.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

To be clear, I was thinking of something more along the line of highlighting the positive advantages for the creative industries if Scotland remains in the UK. Instead of emphasising the negatives of independence, I would like to see something that highlights the positive advantages that are so clear to so many of us.

Nuisance Calls

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Mark Lazarowicz

Thursday 16th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

I do not know whether it is on the grid, but the announcement is governed by Downing street, and the legislation is governed by the Leader of the House.

In order to improve the working relationship between Ofcom and the ICO we also want to make it possible for Ofcom to share the data it has with the ICO, which is not possible at the moment. We will introduce a statutory instrument. That order will be brought into force by the beginning of April. We will look at consent. That will be in the strategy document as well. Members have rightly pointed out that there is frustration with the Telephone Preference Service but again the frustration partly arises from the fact that consumers may not realise they are giving consent and therefore effectively allowing the marketer to override the TPS.

The PECR states that a marketing call cannot be made to a consumer who has registered with the TPS unless consent has been given. The ICO has updated its guidance on this issue, but I accept there is scope for greater clarity to help consumers make informed decisions. We are considering the scope for action in this area and once we have published the strategy document we will launch a hands-on consultation working with consumer groups, particularly Which?, which has been excellent in the area of nuisance calls, and with our regulators to look at a practical way forward. Incredibly complicated regulations could inadvertently be brought in were we to introduce detailed regulations about when informed consent is given. If we are to change the regulations, it is important that we get them absolutely right and that they are clear and not confusing.

Many Members have made the point that there is no silver bullet and I thought the Select Committee report was excellent on that. For example it is easy to say we should just merge the regulators, but when we look into the issues, we see the situation is much more complicated than that and we are much more likely to make more rapid progress by simply making the regulators work together.

In a complex and fast-moving environment, it is also important that we look at what measures we can take without legislation. With developments in telecoms technology, it is now easier and cheaper than ever before to make calls. That is good news for consumers, but rogue companies can also utilise the same technology to circumvent regulation and bombard us with unsolicited calls and texts. We therefore need to look at not just legal measures, but industry collaboration, technical standards, and support from telecoms providers.

We also want improved information and guidance for consumers, to enable them to register complaints on regulators’ websites more easily and also access information about steps they can take to deal with nuisance calls. This information is available, and the guides have been viewed more than a quarter of a million—or perhaps I should say 250,000, as I think that is the new parliamentary expression pioneered by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday—times and are clearly proving to be a valuable tool. Additionally, as a result of our engagement with the consumer organisation Which? it has now developed a user-friendly page on its website whereby consumers are automatically directed to the right place to access information as well as to make complaints. In addition to issuing fines, the ICO “names and shames” persistent offenders on its website so that consumers are better informed about those who break the law.

I mentioned earlier the upswing in the number of nuisance calls. I think that has been generated by the payment protection insurance sector. There is an alphabet soup of regulators with a role in this area, and that sector is regulated by the claims management regulation unit. Through our engagement with it, it has put more resources into tackling the problem of unsolicited calls and text messages to ensure that it can move more quickly to investigate and take enforcement action. It is working actively with the ICO, Ofcom and other relevant bodies to detect and punish those involved. I welcome the action it has taken and continues to take against claims management companies that fail to comply with the rules. From June of last year it started to publish the names of companies under investigation or subject to recent enforcement action. Between July and September 2013, it conducted 41 audits, issued 25 warnings, commenced 11 investigations, cancelled 109 licences and visited 407 claims management companies.

When introducing measures it is important that Government start to think about what impact they might have on nuisance calls. For example, the ban on referral fees in personal injury cases appears to have had the knock-on effect of reducing the volume of marketing calls to potential clients, because claims management companies can no longer receive a fee for referring client details. The claims management regulation unit is actively policing the ban on referral fees, in addition to the ban on claims management companies offering financial rewards.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

The measures that the Minister is outlining are welcome. We are dealing here with nuisance calls, one category of which is the downright scam, which regulations might not be able to cope with. Does he acknowledge the importance of publicity from his Department and perhaps from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in dealing with scam calls? I have heard examples of people getting phone calls from overseas selling them bogus computer insurance; I am sure we have all handled that kind of case. Those scams need to be publicised and people need to be warned about them. Does he agree that such publicity is important in dealing with not only nuisance calls but scams, and that continued efforts need to be made by Ofcom and by the Government in that regard?

[Mr Vaizey]

Yes I do; it is important for consumers to be aware. Organisations such as Which? and official regulators such as Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office are great sources of advice on where scams are under way. They are often organised, all-pervasive scams that touch hundreds of thousands of people, and it is important that clear information on them should be disseminated to people as quickly as possible.

Taking that intervention has given me the opportunity to notice that the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark has snuck into the Chamber. He might not be aware that I mentioned him earlier in the debate, when I said how grateful I was to be working with him. For his edification, I should say that I also pointed out that he and I had embarked on an almost unique experiment called joined-up government to see whether our two Departments could make an impact by working more closely together. But I sense that the House is tiring of that joke. The mood of the House tells me that I should move on.

I also want to talk about call blocking. Market solutions are available for consumers wishing to block calls at individual level, and I am pleased that network-level solutions are now also being considered by telecoms providers and other companies. That is an important development. Phones with call-blocking technology are available for the consumer to buy and use in the home, but network-level blocking is also very effective.

Almost all Members who have spoken in the debate have raised their concern that consumers will be charged for services that could help them to tackle nuisance calls—in particular, caller line identification, call barring and anonymous caller rejection. This is clearly a commercial decision for companies, but it is important that consumers are aware of whether those services are being charged for and how much they cost, so that they can look into which telecoms companies are offering the best deal.

In that regard, I am pleased that, at the end of last year, Ofcom published a table setting out the cost of such services provided by the main telecoms companies. I hope that that will make the companies realise that this is a service that their consumers value. I welcome TalkTalk’s announcement yesterday that it is to become the first company to make all its landline privacy calling features free of charge, and I hope that the other telecoms companies will have noted the clear, strong steer from Members in the debate today that charging for those services is not a good idea.

Hon. Members have also mentioned international calls. It is particularly frustrating when nuisance calls are made from abroad, and it is therefore good news that we are working with BT on finding a way to display incoming international numbers, enabling consumers to make informed decisions. Hon. Members might be angry with BT for charging for caller line identification, but I hope that they will congratulate the company on updating its telephone exchanges to enable that service to encompass international calls. That update is expected to take place after the summer of this year.

We have also been working with the telecoms providers on call tracing. It is sometimes difficult to identify who has made a call, perhaps because the number is unavailable. But we have asked the Network Interoperability Consultative Committee, which brings together all the major telecoms companies, to develop new industry standards for call tracing between networks, as well as revising the current rules on how caller line identifications are passed between networks and presented to consumers. The new call tracing standard was published at the end of last year, and it will simplify and increase the likely success of the process.

We also face other technological challenges, for example, from technology that allows numbers to be “spoofed”. Companies may wish to give customers a local number to call rather than the number of their national centre and so this technology can be used for legitimate reasons, but it can also be misused for nuisance calls. So, again, we are working with regulators and industry to see how that can be addressed. We are also working with the regulators and telecoms providers to explore technical opportunities to make it more difficult to misuse caller line identification in that way, and to help identify companies that are doing so. The spoofing issue has an international dimension, and last autumn Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office announced that they would be joining forces with regulators from Australia, Canada and the United States to tackle spoofing.

The issue of nuisance texts has been raised during the debate. Mobile operators, the Global System for Mobile communications Association—GSMA—and the ICO are working together to allow mobile operators to share their information to help block nuisance texts, no matter which network they emerge from, as well as to enable the regulator to take more effective enforcement action. The GSMA spam text reporting service enables consumers to make a report by using a short code, “7726”. Such reporting makes a difference. To give just one example, we have been told by the mobile operator Three that it suspends thousands of pay-as-you-go accounts each month in its efforts to tackle nuisance texts. As in many cases, the expertise to tackle such issues lies in the industry, which is why it is so important that we continue to work with it. The marketing industry also needs to play its part. Last October, the Telephone Preference Service launched its accreditation scheme, “TPS assured”, which focuses on improving the best practice of companies using these techniques. That is, in effect, a kitemark for call centres; it allows companies that do adhere to the Direct Marketing Association guidelines to get an industry accreditation that they are TPS assured and to use it in their marketing material.

A lot of hon. Members have mentioned their concerns about the effectiveness of the TPS. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, some things were beyond the control of the TPS and it is up to the Government, working with consumer groups, to look at the issue of consent. We need to have clear and specific information to guide our thinking on the effectiveness of the TPS. The TPS is governed by Ofcom, although Ofcom has contracted out its management to the DMA. Ofcom is undertaking research on the effectiveness of the TPS and that work will conclude in the spring. We expect Ofcom to publish its recommendations in the summer.

Let me touch on some of the other actions being taken. Regulators, the ICO and Ofcom sent a joint letter to about 170 organisations reminding them of the need to ensure compliance with the rules. The ICO has engaged with more than 20 organisations responsible for making nuisance calls through compliance meetings and has monitored their progress over a period of three months. As a result, there was a substantial reduction in the number of complaints about those 20 companies. Ofcom has also taken informal action against 25 organisations. As a result, complaints linked to telephone numbers used by 16 of them stopped and the number of complaints against five others fell significantly—four cases are ongoing. Again, I wish to assure hon. Members that although the fines get the headlines, a lot of behind-the-scenes work is going on, with both Ofcom and the ICO engaging with organisations that attract a persistent and high number of complaints.

I am also very aware of the concerns raised by the StepChange Debt Charity in its October report “Got their number”, which highlighted the serious consequences that can arise from nuisance calls for people who are financially vulnerable. That report notes that there are many factors that feed into this issue, including the apparent ease with which people’s personal data can be gathered and sold on. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland also mentioned her concerns about personal data. Again, the issue highlights the need for my Department to work more closely with the Ministry of Justice. There should be a joined-up approach to data management in this area.

I share the concerns that regulators should be able to take greater action, and I hope that the information-sharing legislation that we will introduce as well as the proposals in the joint action plan published by Ofcom and the ICO will lead to more action in this area. I take this opportunity to welcome StepChange’s efforts to provide clear advice for consumers and also its willingness to promote Ofcom’s guidance on nuisance calls.

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, I welcome the interest that has been shown in this issue. We have an excellent report from the all-party group on nuisance calls. Both Backbench debates today have highlighted the effective work that all-party groups can undertake. We also have an excellent report from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. We have also had a number of private Members’ Bills, parliamentary questions and sustained and helpful interest from a whole range of Members.

I hope that we have shown that we have some clear proposals, which we will publish once they have received clearance in the Whitehall write-around. We expect that to involve two pieces of minor legislation, which should make a significant impact in terms of allowing Ofcom and the ICO to share data and of reducing the threshold for what constitutes a nuisance call. Further work will commence on the complex issue of consent, which is a live issue. It is an important matter. Indeed, the chairman of the all-party group challenged me at a meeting yesterday about what action would be taken after the report was published. I made a twofold commitment to him. I will continue my wider round-table discussions every three months, bringing together all the relevant stakeholders, telecoms companies, Members of Parliament, regulators and others. I also committed that the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark and I would meet him once a month for an update on where we are on making progress on action against nuisance calls. As has been said by several Members during this debate, the time for talking is over and the time for action has arrived. In order to continue to make an impact, it is important that I am held to account and that regular meetings take place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Mark Lazarowicz

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

9. What steps she is taking to improve the quality of broadband provision in urban areas.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

Under our super-connected cities programme, we have made £150 million available to support broadband in cities across the country, including Edinburgh. It is one of five cities piloting the voucher scheme, which will eventually reach 22 cities.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Edinburgh is indeed one of those cities, and that support from the Government is welcome, but there are households right in the city centre that, under present plans, will not get superfast broadband because, on the one hand, BT says that providing them with it would not be commercial and, on the other hand, they are regarded as areas in which it can be developed commercially so they do not get aid under EU state aid rules. Will the Minister get involved and ensure that all households in urban areas get superfast broadband and are not left out, as some of my constituents will be?

[Mr Vaizey]

We are determined that by the end of 2015 every house will have at least 2 megabits broadband, but I will certainly work with the hon. Gentleman to ensure that if there are pockets of Edinburgh that will not get access to superfast broadband, either commercially or under the super-connected cities programme, we will look at creating a solution.