Dormant Assets Bill [HL]

Lord Adonis Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 26th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, we are much looking forward to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, and to the great contribution that she will make to the House on the basis of her long experience of the cultural and media sectors. She is extremely welcome here.

We strongly welcome the Bill. Indeed, I cannot think of any good reason why anyone would oppose it unless they think that it is a great idea for dormant assets to sit untouched. Short of them being in some Swiss vault, having been improperly gained in the first place, why would anyone welcome that? This is a thoroughly welcome Bill and, as my noble friend Lord Blunkett said, it builds on a cross-party initiative that was taken nearly 15 years ago seeking to deploy dormant assets. The then Government sought to unlock assets that were in bank and building society accounts, and this legislation expands the range of assets that can be brought forward. I strongly welcome it and I hope that it has a speedy passage.

However, the noble Baroness who opened the debate invited us to look at the wider voluntary sector and the work that is being supported by these good causes. I should like to enlarge the scope of the debate in that direction. This is the principal measure in respect of the voluntary sector that the Government are bringing forward in this Session. It is one of the first measures that they have introduced after the Queen’s Speech, and the first measures introduced after a Queen’s Speech are a good guide to the priorities of a Government. I am at one with Iain Martin, who was quite insightful in his column in the Times last week. He said that the problem with the Queen’s Speech is that it lacked big themes and reform directions. He quoted a Conservative MP who said to him that the Speech was like reading from the Yellow Pages the first five or six items on the list. He compared that unfavourably with the Thatcher Government, who had a big and bold programme of reform of the public and private sectors in the 1980s, and the Blair Government, who had a similar level of reform after 1997.

What struck me as I was reading that and thinking about the Bill is that it is true of the voluntary sector, too. The Thatcher and Major Governments had a bold approach to that sector. Indeed, the National Lottery was one of the biggest and boldest reforms of the voluntary and third sectors—and the injection of funds into them—that we have seen in the history of this country. In the 27 years—or whatever it is—since the lottery has been in operation, an estimated £42 billion has been raised for good causes, and that of course has had a dynamic effect. The lottery has massively energised the voluntary life and good causes of this country and it dwarfs the resources that can be made available under the Bill.

The Blair Government sought to be as bold in their vision. The two particular bold things that we sought to push forward included the engagement of voluntary, private and religious-based organisations in the delivery, as appropriate, of public services. When I was Education Minister, we put a huge effort into developing public-private partnerships in respect of schools—particularly independently managed state schools, or academies, which I am glad to say have now spread far and wide. With the enormous partnership of my noble friend Lord Blunkett, we established more than 400 academies and raised more than half a billion pounds in charitable contributions, with huge energy from the sponsors, including notable Members of this House—the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Peckham, is a formidable academy sponsor—and I was very proud of the work that we did there.

The Charities Act 2006 sought to enlarge the scope of charitable endeavour. The single biggest form of charitable endeavour in this country is in education. That Act sought, in particular, to introduce the public benefit test into the definition of the charitable activities of private schools to enlarge their work. I want to come back to that in a moment, because it is a significant piece of unfinished business.

The Cameron Government started well. The idea of the big society is one that I should have thought everyone in the House would embrace as a direction of travel. It built on the National Lottery, on the engagement of the voluntary sector in the delivery of public services and on the Charities Act to enlarge the scope of what could be done by voluntary effort in meeting big, national objectives. I was a strong supporter of the National Citizen Service; indeed, I am a patron, and wish for it to be extended much more boldly than it has been, so that all young people get an opportunity to make an organised contribution to society which will set them on a track that, I hope, will live with them for the rest of their lives, bring our communities together in the way in which we need to—they are so divided, and have become more divided, in this country over recent years—and, in the jargon of today, engage them in levelling up. The tragedy of the big society is that it was a great idea but the policy was not there to follow it up and it essentially fizzled out.

The problem at the moment is that, under the present Government, there is no real strategy beyond a few measures of this kind that are fairly minor in the big scheme of things. The Minister said that perhaps £800 million or so may be raised from this measure over many years to come. That is all very worthwhile but the amount is small by comparison with the big measures that I have talked about. In some respects, we are going backwards.

Of particular concern to me is that the area of charitable endeavour in which we are going backwards is education. An attempt was made by the Charities Act 2006, which was long overdue, to focus the huge charitable assets invested in the education sector on the provision of genuinely charitable activity—by which I mean engaging in poorer communities and giving poorer students opportunities that they do not have. Unfortunately, that big policy emphasis has moved backwards in the past 15 years because of the rigid determination of private schools—which are of course charities, most of whose assets were given in the form of charitable donations, mostly for the education of the poor and underprivileged—and the failure to ensure that those assets are properly applied. That is a constant problem at the heart of our charitable sector, which we were seeking to get at in the 2006 Act.

That policy, by legal action on the part of the private schools, was reversed. Then, under the present Government—including through the appointment of a former Leader of this House as chairman of the Charity Commission; an unusually political act—the policy was actually put into reverse. The obligations that we had sought to impose on those private schools have now been entirely lifted. The private schools sector, which is substantially charitable, is now more focused on simply delivering education for the very rich and privileged in our society than it has probably ever been in the history of this country.

The British Sociological Association, in a paper published last month which is hugely important in order to understand what is happening to the charities sector in this country, estimates that £1 billion a year—I repeat, £1 billion—is spent on fee relief for less-advantaged children attending private schools. These are charitable institutions to start with, and command about £1 trillion-worth of assets between them. But according to the study of 142 schools by the association, 97% of the £1 billion is spent on subsidies to essentially middle-class families who can afford substantial fees; only 3% goes on the relief of fees in their totality, or up to a level of 75%, for families who have very low means. So what starts off as a hugely privileged sector, even in the work that it does that is supposed to be charitable—in relieving fees and giving access to these charitable assets—is not meeting those objectives.

While I welcome the Bill and think that what it does in its own small way is worth while, and while I welcome the laudable objectives for the charitable and voluntary sectors which have been played out in noble Lords’ speeches throughout the debate, we are being deeply complacent if we think that we are moving broadly in the right direction on these issues. We are moving backwards not forwards when it comes to the expansion and engagement of the charitable and voluntary sectors in the life of the country. It is a big part of the problem we have in levelling up across different parts of the country and different parts of the community. The Government need a much bolder and more coherent policy if we are to meet these big social objectives.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

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

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have received requests to ask a short question of elucidation from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, we are very grateful for the Minister’s reply. She said that the Government wished to table a specific amendment which was ruled out of order by the Public Bill Office. Is it the Government’s intention to bring the precise power that they were going to take in this Bill in the Telecommunications (Security) Bill? The Government control the legislative process. Will they bring forward the precise proposal they wished to bring forward in this Bill in another, which will come before us in the near future?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Just to clarify, the Government brought two versions of the amendment, not one. To the best of my knowledge, there is no intention to bring it back because the focus of the Telecommunications (Security) Bill is on telecoms security and national security. Therefore, any such amendment would face the same barrier as it faced in this Bill—namely, it would be out of scope. If it were effective on the supply chain, it would be out of scope.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 29th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I support the Bill because it provides an opportunity for some residents to obtain telecommunications infrastructure for their properties, even when their landlord cannot be contacted to give permission for such installations. The problem is I do not think that many tenants would be included. I added my name to Amendments 2 and 3 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, because they would enable further, badly needed, additions to our telecommunications infrastructure.

The essential issue here is the need to extend the availability of telecoms infrastructure as widely as possible, while providing sufficient protection for landlords to avoid unnecessary damage to, or interference with, their property. The protections for landlords in the Bill are more than adequate, albeit that some of the detail of those protections will be specified in regulations and be up to Ministers.

The most important protection for the landlord is that the operator must convince the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) of the justification for the installation of telecommunications infrastructure. Only then will permission be given for the installation to go ahead. The Bill makes it clear that the tribunal will require an enormous amount of information before making its decision, and at the start of the process the operator must make multiple attempts to contact the landlord and gain their approval if they possibly can. The amendment provides for Ministers to extend the scope of the Bill.

The Government’s justification to the Delegated Powers Committee—I declare my interest as a member of that committee—for restricting the scope of the Bill at the outset is simply that multi-occupied blocks of flats are the most common source of demand for the provisions of the Bill. However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, that it would be sensible to extend the scope of the Bill to tenants with a rental contract, for example, even if it turns out that the demand from those tenants is not all that great.

The Government refer to business parks and office blocks as potential candidates for the powers under the Bill to obtain telecommunications infrastructure. Perhaps the Minister could explain if there is any reason not to include such premises within the scope of the Bill now, and by that I mean rental situations as well as lessee situations.

Amendment 3, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, affords an operator the right to initiate proceedings to provide infrastructure on a site where they see a public interest in doing so. Again, I welcome the proposal; the safeguards for the landlord are so extensive, including the need to convince the tribunal of the merits of the case, that this extension of the scope of the Bill could only be beneficial.

I hope very much that the Minister will consider these amendments sympathetically. They are not party-political issues at all but rather a genuine concern for the general improvement of the country’s infrastructure.

[Lord Adonis (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I entirely agree with all the arguments that have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and have nothing to add. I hope the Government will accept this amendment.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I would like to clarify some of the arguments that have arisen on the sidelines since Committee regarding how Amendments 1 and 2, which I am inclined to support, would function.

It is probably fair to say that in rural areas the connections are slower and less secure, as we have seen in a number of our own parliamentary proceedings. Amendment 2 refers to who can request an operator to provide an electronic telecommunications service; that would include rural tenants. I am concerned that many tenants are trying to conduct a business from home in the current circumstances surrounding Covid-19; I have found myself in such circumstances.

Can we have an assurance today from the Minister that, given what other noble Lords have said about the assurances and powers that landlords have in this regard, consent being sought from a landlord could not possibly delay connections to a fibre network? Fibre is very slow to be delivered, particularly in upland areas, and it would be regrettable if there were any further delay due to consent being sought from a landlord who may not be immediately available in that regard. I would be grateful to learn what my noble friend’s thinking is in that regard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for giving us the opportunity to look at this very vexed area. Is the Minister aware of the situation and the fact that many living in isolated situations and deeply rural areas, as described by the noble Lord, feel that they are being disadvantaged in this regard? It would be helpful to know that. I entirely endorse what my noble friend said about seeking a balanced relationship between the landowner, the operator and the tenant, but can she confirm the point that I made earlier—I do not know whether she addressed it—that the landowner cannot use any delay, in any way, to prevent the service and the upgrade to a fibre network that would benefit the tenant? She would surely agree with that.

[Lord Adonis [V]]

I have nothing to add to what my noble friend has said.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Lord Naseby? Do we have Lord Naseby? Is Lord Naseby not available? In that case we will go to the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am speaking to the House virtually, using equipment manufactured by a company which is central to the Communist Party of China’s surveillance state, and, as such, to the egregious oppression of religious and other minorities. My BT Openreach equipment is made by Huawei, one of whose directors openly boasted that:

“Together with the Public Security Bureau, Huawei will unlock a new era of smart policing and help build a safer, smarter society.”


It will be “a new era” indeed: an era of detention without trial for bloggers, journalists, academics and dissidents; an era of televised forced confessions; an era of torture, enforced organ harvesting, compulsory sterilisation, and the destruction of crosses and their churches.

I commend to the House the evidence-based report by the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission entitled The Darkest Moment: The Crackdown in Human Rights in China, 2013-16. It makes for very disturbing reading. It details how a pastor’s wife was buried alive while protesting at the demolition of a church in Henan province, and how Falun Gong prisoners were forced to donate organs to high-ranking Chinese officials.

Giving evidence to the commission on organ harvesting, the Chinese-born actress Anastasia Lin said that such acts force us

“to confront the question of how humans—doctors trained to heal, no less—could possibly do such great evil”.

Her answer was that:

“The aggressors in China were not born to be monsters who take out organs from their people … It’s the system that made them do that. It’s the system that made them so cold-bloodedly able to cut people open and take out their organs and watch them die.”


As a consequence of her criticism of the regime, Miss Lin’s family were threatened by state security agents, and her Canadian sponsors were asked by the Chinese consulate to withdraw their support to her. I believe that a new report, under the chairmanship of Fiona Bruce MP, is to be published shortly. It concludes that the situation is worse now in China, not better.

Of course I understand the importance of getting the nation connected with fibre; I support this Bill in its objectives. However, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, on his ingenuity in bringing forward this amendment, and on the courage and courtesy he has shown in bringing it to this stage. I also thank the Minister, who has been diligent in listening to arguments and representations.

As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, predicted, the Minister will say that this is not the right vehicle to address my concerns for national security and human rights. I was a Minister for 10 years, and I would love a pound for every time I used that particular argument. If, however, the argument is correct, an undertaking to bring forward in future legislation an amendment to exclude Huawei and other high-risk vendors from our network should be given by the Minister, with a commitment to introduce it quickly. In that case, there would be no need to press the matter today. So far, the Government have failed to give such a commitment, but it is not so difficult. After all, speaking from the Front Bench on 27 January, my noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes—who we will hear from shortly—gave the whole House an assurance that

“high-risk vendors never have been and never will be involved in our most sensitive networks”.—[Official Report, 27/1/20; col. 1300.]

If so, all that is required is dropping the qualification “most sensitive”, and recognising the difficulty of maintaining effective security with 5G systems which are software-based.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has detailed how Huawei is implicated in the world’s most far-reaching surveillance state. In a BBC “Panorama” documentary, Adrian Zenz, a German academic who the noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to, spoke of the Chinese Government’s actions in Xinjiang:

“The world should acknowledge this for what it is: the largest detainment of an ethnic minority since the holocaust.”


I repeat: “since the holocaust”. Our Five Eyes allies have rejected Huawei. As was pointed out by the previous speaker and fellow signatory to this amendment, the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, if we allow our dependency on Huawei to grow, how much more difficult it will be for us to take a stand for national security, decency and human rights.

Huawei is not without friends in high places. The noble Lord, Lord Browne of Madingley, chairs the UK board, and in April it was announced that Sir Mike Rake, former chairman of BT and president of the CBI, was joining the board. Other members include the Lord Lieutenant of London, Sir Ken Olisa, and Sir Andrew Cahn, the former head of UK Trade & Investment. From a quick online search, I could not find what the UK board of Huawei does, or what roles the directors carry out. However, championing the human rights of oppressed groups in China is certainly not one of them.

This amendment would simply require the Chinese Communist Party and its state-controlled company, Huawei, to meet fundamental standards of humanity if they wished to operate in UK telecommunications in the future. It is hard to see how anyone in your Lordships’ House could be against that. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, pointed out, Ministers and officials have confirmed that the telecommunications security Bill will not be amendable to secure human rights obligations, so, in the absence of a government commitment to bring forward an amendment at Third Reading, this is our only chance to stand up for the millions of people in communist China who have been robbed of their freedom and whose lives are a misery because of their beliefs and ethnicity. I urge all noble Lords to support the amendment in the name of humanity.

[Lord Adonis [V]]

My Lords, I support the amendment and applaud the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for consistently drawing the attention of the House to systematic and unsupportable violations of human rights in respect not only of China but so many troubled regions in the world.

The key issue in respect of Huawei and this Bill is how we balance two priorities. The first is the modernisation of our national infrastructure and the second is seeking to support improvements in human rights in China. I have come to human rights issues relating to China only fairly recently, because of the obviously worsening situation. The key issue is that just raised by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth: whether human rights in China are getting significantly better or significantly worse. It is clear that it is the latter.

My prime concern previously as the founding chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission, working with all parties in the House, has been the modernisation of our infrastructure. In that role, I published two reports, one on the importance of a rapid rollout of 5G, so that we could be world leaders in that respect—as we need to be—and the second on the poor state of our 4G coverage, where we are well below international benchmarks and have been strongly engaged with Huawei. I am therefore very mindful of the importance of infrastructure modernisation and working with international partners in that regard.

However, it is clear to me at this crucial juncture, as we start the rollout of 5G and seek to improve 4G, that we have to do so sustainably. I do not believe that it will be sustainable over the medium term, which is what we need to look to in the rollout of 5G and what comes after it, if we are dealing with a Chinese regime not only systematically abusing human rights but doing so to a steadily worsening degree. If that is the situation we face, we need to move sooner rather than later in looking for alternative suppliers. I can say to the House from my experience of chairing the National Infrastructure Commission that we would not be putting ourselves at a significant disadvantage if we did not engage with Chinese suppliers. There are plenty of very good European suppliers of telecoms equipment. Our German friends—I always look to Germany as a model for how we should develop in these areas because it is normally ahead of us—have managed to engage in this technological development without the need to engage with Chinese suppliers. I am also mindful that our security partners, notably the United States and Australia, have given us strong public, and even stronger private, advice not to go with Chinese suppliers in respect of 5G.

We have heard in shocking detail from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about systemic human rights abuses in respect of the Uighurs as well as within the traditional territory of China, but the House is mindful that we face an escalating crisis in respect of Hong Kong which is taking on a human rights dimension. It is the Hong Kong dimension that has most strongly alerted me to the fact that the situation may be unsustainable.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Clement- Jones for setting out this amendment so effectively. He promised to be brief; I will be even briefer. Is this not symptomatic of the whole Bill, where the balance is against things happening rather than for making things happen? What was in the Government’s mind when they wrote this clause and put this Bill together? Is this an enabling Bill or a sort of grudging Bill that somehow lets a few things happen but ends up stopping a lot of other things? Why did the Government take this kind of attitude, which is symptomatic of the whole Bill?

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Am I coming through loud and clear? I suddenly have the Throne as my picture on the screen. Should I be worried?

[A noble Lord]

We would prefer the Throne, actually.

[Lord Adonis]

As long as everyone has the Throne, that is fine.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, made the correct argument for the Bill: having the right balance between the providers and those who lose out in terms of infringements to their property. His point about direct compensation seems sensible.

There is a further concern on this issue: on an owner not being prepared to allow a telecoms company to access their land, in many cases, part of the reason why they might play hardball in terms of compensation is that they are not the ones primarily affected by the loss. The people primarily affected by the failure to lay the cable will be their tenants. That is a real issue in this case. We should not allow owners to disadvantage their tenants because they cannot get what they regard as a satisfactory level of compensation out of a provider.

I hope that the Minister will be able to allay our concerns and tell us that this is not just an open invitation to owners who are not going to benefit from the fibre being laid to those premises, because all the benefit will accrue to tenants, to try to get the best compensation they can. Going through a compensation route not only might mean the fibre is not laid at all but could lead to delays. The Bill does not seek only to enhance fibre coverage but to do so swiftly. Anything that encourages delays and haggles over compensation, where there is good reason for owners to expect that they might be able to extract more than they are offered, is very much against the public interest.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)]

I follow a couple of points made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I am chairman of the residents’ association of a block of flats in Camden, London, and I mentioned all this to a meeting of the residents. Of course, on these occasions one gets a lot of relevant feedback and a lot of feed- back that is not relevant, but there is quite a lot of concern about whether HMG have had the time, or will make available the time, to check with the National Organisation of Residents Associations or to understand the nature of a typical tenant on a lease of, let us say, 99 or 125 years. There is a ground landlord, a managing agent, a leaseholder and an attempt to liaise between the tenants, all of whom may have broadly the same interest, but they are—to say the least—very confused indeed when it comes to compensation and how things get held up. It is a bit of a nightmare.

Can the Minister give an assurance that, although we are at this stage of the Bill, the Government can give Parliament a more comprehensive account of the feedback they have got and the degree to which they have buy-in from these various interests?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I too wish to make a Second Reading point which I would have made if I had had a chance to speak at Second Reading. I am speaking on the proposed new clause because I want to query the meaning of

“achieving access to 1 gigabit per second broadband”

and explain why it is meaningless without a guarantee of minimum speeds.

Most of us probably already have superfast broadband, defined as download speeds of at least 24 megabits per second, but has any colleague ever had that? If one logs on at 3 am, one might get close to that, but in the main it is bogus. That is nothing to do with the Government except that we let ISPs get away with claims that their system delivers “up to 24 megabits per second”.

The Government’s commitment is to build “gigabit-capable broadband” nationwide by 2025. That is a sensible change from the May Government’s terminology of “full fibre”, as it will permit 5G and wireless technology rather than trying to run cables to extremely remote locations. However, I, and I suspect millions of others, do not want or need to download a high-definition, overlong two-hour film—as many seem to be these days, as modern directors are incapable of sensible editing—in 20 seconds. That is not important. I suggest that we need better connectivity for our Zoom and Teams conferences, and reliable speeds for the exchange of business information and PowerPoint slides. Of course, some specialist companies will need to send gigabit video files, but the main users, or abusers, of that will be kids downloading films and games. Therefore, I come back to the point that most of us will never get one gigabit constantly, since the airwave or cable space will be taken up with rubbish films being downloaded by children.

The correct solution would be a differential charge for the amount of material downloaded. I endorse that, but I believe that it is strongly opposed by powerful internet activists who demand any amount of material at the same price as for those who send only a few emails. I ask the Minister to deliver a minimum guaranteed floor by the internet service providers. I do not care what it is, but I want consistency. I for one am fed up being ripped off with “up to” speeds. I do not necessarily want one gigabit; I will happily pay for 100 megabits, 250 megabits or 500 megabits, but I want that speed all the time, 24/7, and not just for two minutes of the day at 3 am.

A commitment to a guaranteed minimum speed is far more important than access to a theoretical speed which most of us will never need and those who do will never get, since millions of unnecessary films will block up the system. Therefore, although it is not in the Bill, I would love to hear my noble friend the Minister say that she will introduce a measure to compel internet service providers to deliver a minimum speed, no matter how low that might be so long as it is guaranteed 24/7.

[Lord Adonis]

I do not follow the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, in seeking to make moral, let alone ageist, judgments on different users of internet services, but I completely follow him in his point about the need for a universal service obligation that is both universal and an obligation. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, spoke about the parallel with electricity, but the more relevant parallel may be with the development of the postal service, which was done nearly two centuries ago. The principle of access on an equal basis to the most remote parts of Britain was at the centre of the postal service that Anthony Trollope and others developed in the mid-19th century. Irrespective of what people chose to put in the envelopes, the principle was that you would get a delivery at least once a day everywhere for the same price.

The bit that the Government keep ducking is turning this into a universal service obligation; they keep talking about targets for increased rollout. The steps being taken in this Bill are welcome because they will make it possible to get more gigabit coverage to more people quickly. But there is no definition of a universal service obligation, and if it is not in this Bill, then sometime soon Parliament will have to grapple with the issue of a universal service obligation that provides coverage at around the 1 gigabit level to all premises in the United Kingdom. We would then map out how to do that in exactly the same way as we have done with utilities in the past.

However, the bit that I do not think anyone can question is that this is now a utility-type service that people require. We need only to look at the most advanced nations in the world that are doing best with their internet services, led by South Korea and many east Asian countries. Some time ago, they regarded high-capacity networks of this kind as universal services and put an obligation on someone—whether the state or private providers—that they had to meet. We are still behind the curve. We cannot claim that we are building world-class networks while we refuse to define a universal service obligation. This Bill provides a good opportunity for the Government to do so, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reasons why we should yet again kick the can down the road.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I echo some of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. However, my anxiety about this whole process is that for years, the Government have been talking about bringing fast, competitive broadband into the United Kingdom, yet we are still quite some distance behind our major competitors. Being forced to use our current virtual proceedings has revealed inconsistency in the quality of service throughout the UK. When watching some of our colleagues on Zoom or even on Microsoft Teams, it is obvious that the quality of the service varies dramatically from one part of the country to another. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, pointed out that time of day also has a major impact on the speed of the system.

As more people work from home during the current crisis, it is likely that some will continue to do so, and that might be a growing pattern. If we are to have a competitive economy operating in all parts of our United Kingdom, that is all the more reason to ensure that we have a service that is fit for purpose. Governments have come out with these statements time and again, but as is often the case with much of our fundamental infrastructure, particularly as it applies to industrial strategy, we are a day late and a dollar short. This is not a new phenomenon. I do not understand why, sometimes, this country comes up with fantastic inventions but we fail to exploit them. The Whittle jet engine was a fantastic invention, but other people really made money out of it. Someone from the UK devised the World Wide Web, and yet we all know that someone else is exploiting it and making money out of it. We seem to be unable to take an idea and convert it into a meaningful and effective industrial strategy, and sometimes that can be very depressing.

If we do not set a reasonable target and require Her Majesty’s Government to come back and test how effective it has been, in two or three years’ time we will end up making the same claims in the same speeches, and many of our competitors in other parts of the world will have moved on. The Minister and the Government have nothing to lose in setting a reasonable target on which they have to come back to us. After all, the Health Secretary said today in the other place that he is happy to have his efforts judged by the statistics people. Some measurement of progress has to be made and if it is not, we need more Executive action or, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, has said, further and better legislation.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 19th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

The next speaker on my list is the noble Lord, Lord Fox, but as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, pointed out, he is joining the debate after the interval. I therefore call the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I spoke at Second Reading, so I do not need to follow the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in making a Second Reading speech. I agree with all the points he made; his amendments probe the Minister in all the right directions.

However, a new big Second Reading theme has emerged since that Second Reading debate, due to the coronavirus crisis and the pressure it is putting on private operators. There has been a good deal of media speculation in the last two weeks as to what might happen to Openreach, in particular whether BT will seek new partners to fund its rollout plans or possibly even sell off Openreach entirely. That would be a dramatic change in circumstance from the position before the crisis, when BT was keen to maintain its position with Openreach and the argument was much more about how one could get a commitment to rollout while Openreach was still linked to BT.

In her reply, can the Minister give us a sitrep on the position in respect of Openreach, what BT’s intentions are and what impact she believes it will have on the rollout schedule and plans in respect of superfast broadband? This has a big bearing on the subsequent amendments and those we might want to take forward on Report. I hope she can give us an update on those issues.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I echo many of the sentiments expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and thank him for tabling these amendments. Leasehold properties are a very grey and disaffected area of property rights. It is extremely important to state at the outset that my interest is primarily in putting leasehold properties, particularly in rural areas, on the same basis as any other property.

As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, Covid-19 has thrown a spotlight on the importance of connectivity and access to all forms of communication, particularly mobile signals, wi-fi and broadband. Without a shadow of a doubt, in north Yorkshire and other deeply rural parts of the country, many properties, not just leasehold properties—we lived in one for a couple of years in north Yorkshire—are very remote from the exchange and their connectivity remains woefully slow. I ask the Minister directly to ensure that leasehold properties will be put on the same basis as any other property, particularly in rural areas.

I support this group of amendments in a probing way—particularly Amendment 1, which will cover tenants. On Amendment 5, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, alluded to, leaseholders may not be in an occupation. What is the position under the Bill as it stands, without Amendment 5, if the occupant was retired?

With these few focused remarks, I take this opportunity to ensure that the Bill fulfils its purpose—to put these property rights on an equal basis with other rights—but also to ensure that in rural areas we have the maximum connectivity in every aspect, whether mobile signal, wi-fi or broadband, which is the Bill’s intent.

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[Baroness Barran]

My noble friend makes an important point. It is something we keep constantly under review and I will take her comments back to my colleagues in the department, so that they are aware of her remarks.

[Lord Adonis]

I am glad that the Minister has a sense of humour. Those of us in this Committee will regard her predicament of having a very weak connection as fully justifying the Bill. I do not know whether she is in a shared property that does not have fibre throughout, but we cannot properly conduct this Committee stage because even among ourselves we do not have a sufficiently strong internet signal, despite having weeks to prepare. This demonstrates why, as a country, we need to get going on this.

I did not pick up the first time round what the Minister said about BT, because of her dropped connection. When she repeated it in response to my noble friend Lord Liddle, she left me somewhat concerned. She said that the stories in the FT were “inaccurate”, but she would not say in what respect; she simply referred to other press comments. I see exactly what she is seeking to do: she is trying to keep clear of revealing to us private information, which the Government or the regulator will surely have, about what is going on in this context. However, I think she will understand that we do not really regard this situation as satisfactory.

As my noble friends Lord Liddle and Lord Stevenson rightly said, although Openreach is formally a private company, our whole understanding is that rolling out enhanced gigabyte connectivity crucially depends on Openreach. If we do not have confidence in its capacity to do this, the Committee will certainly not be satisfied that the Government have a strategy. To be fair, I do not think that the Government themselves would be satisfied with the situation either.

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Moved by

[Lord Adonis]

2: Clause 1, page 1, line 17, at end insert—
“( ) the operator intends to provide an electronic telecommunications service that can deliver an average download speed of at least one gigabit per second.”

[Lord Adonis]

This amendment provides that the powers in the Bill can be used only in respect of an operator which,

“intends to provide an electronic telecommunications service that can deliver an average download speed of at least one gigabit per second”,

which leads on from the points made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and other noble Lords, about this being part of the nation’s intended rollout of fibre capacity, so that fibre and superfast broadband become a core public utility like the others. Exactly the same amendment was moved in the House of Commons Standing Committee by Chi Onwurah, but I make no apology for bringing it to this Committee, because of the Government’s response. I do not need to go through all the arguments as to why we need the one gigabit requirement. That is what we mean by full-fibre connectivity. The Government have accepted that; anything less will not provide the new level of public service utility that we all want.

The odd thing, though, is the Government’s reluctance to see this defined in the Bill. I had assumed that they accepted that it was the target but did not think it necessary to define it in the Bill. However, what the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Matt Warman, said in the House of Commons in his response to the Bill committee on 11 February leads me to have much bigger concerns than before. He said:

“We sympathise with the spirit of the amendment. There is currently little evidence that anyone seeks to install services that are not gigabit capable.”


However, he went on to say:

“If a group of residents or a telecoms operator sought to install a service that was not gigabit capable, although that is extremely unlikely, I do not think the Government should seek to withhold better broadband from a block of flats, for instance, simply because that is the only option available”.—[Official Report, Commons, Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill Committee, 11/2/20; col. 7.]


He made other statements in exactly the same spirit later.

This raises a fundamental issue, which I will press the Minister on. Are we or are we not talking about full-fibre connectivity with gigabit capability? That surely must be what we seek to achieve as the public utility standard across the country, not just in urban areas, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, so rightly said, in rural areas too. I do not think that Parliament would now regard this as satisfactory and something that should be left to private companies. They may come forward with other proposals and make other provision, but we in Parliament should be concerned about getting the full-fibre connectivity at the 1 Gbps standard.

Just to remind the Committee, Japan has currently reached 98% coverage with that standard, and South Korea 97% coverage. On the latest figures, the United Kingdom has reached only 11% coverage. In a former life, when I was the chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission, this was one of the highest priorities for infrastructure catch-up that we identified as a country. The other, which is related, was our appalling level of 4G coverage; I imagine that the Minister would have had dropped connections as serious as those from her current internet connection.

Can I press the Minister to say why the Government will not accept this gigabit-per-second capability standard in the Bill? Does she stand by what Matt Warman said in the House of Commons: that it is because the Government do not want to put that requirement on private operators? If so, does she realise that it immediately gives rise to the question whether we can accept that the Government are sufficiently committed to meeting this full-fibre gigabit-per-second standard? If they are not, I suggest to her that the Government’s whole strategy will start to fall apart at the seams. I beg to move.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow my noble friend Lord Adonis, to whom I am grateful for tabling Amendment 2. The Government have talked a lot about improving broadband speeds across the nation—something which, in light of the current situation, has become more important than ever. Despite this, as my noble friend Lord Collins of Highbury noted at Second Reading, there has been a gradual but very definite downgrading of the Government’s ambitions.

When the Bill was first published back in January, it should have been an important step in realising the stated ambition of widely available gigabit-capable broadband. The Government have their new Commons majority—not that they needed it, because the issue of improving our telecommunications infrastructure is not contentious. Instead, not only was the legislation severely limited in its scope; it played it safe on the services to be provided under it. The Committee can imagine our disappointment, and the bewilderment of many who had expected so much more from the department.

The Labour Front Bench has signed this amendment, as we need greater clarity on the Government’s plan for high-speed broadband and other forms of telecommunications infrastructure in the months and years to come.

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[Baroness Barran]

My Lords, I will now respond to Amendment 2 and the points raised by noble Lords.

This amendment would limit the use of the powers contained in Part 4A only to operators installing gigabit-capable services. As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, stressed, the spirit of this amendment is to test the Government’s commitment to providing gigabit-capable broadband. I am obviously disappointed that he found insufficient the remarks of my honourable friend the Minister for Digital Infrastructure in the other place.

The Government remain completely committed to bringing faster, gigabit-capable broadband to the whole country as soon as possible. Our ambition remains nationwide coverage by 2025. However, we do not believe that we should force consumers to take out specific services.

Clause 1, as currently drafted, supports our ambition. It provides a bespoke process in the courts that will allow an operator faced with a landowner of a premises within the scope of this Bill who repeatedly fails to respond to notices, and a tenant waiting for a service to be connected, to gain interim code rights for the purpose of connecting that building to their broadband service. To limit provision only to services

“that can deliver an average download speed of at least one gigabit per second”

runs the risk, particularly in the short term, of limiting access to better broadband, which, as all noble Lords have agreed, is extremely important.

This Bill, like the Electronic Communications Code, which it amends, is technology neutral and therefore speed neutral. It makes no distinction between the type of service being deployed but recognises the consumer’s right to choose the service they want from the provider they want. Of course, many consumers will want the speed, reliability and resilience offered by full-fibre or gigabit-capable connections, and it should not be the role of government to limit their ability to choose.

In a similar vein, although gigabit-capable services are being rolled out across the UK, they are not yet being deployed everywhere. In practice, the amendment would mean that households in areas yet to be reached by gigabit-capable networks would have to wait—maybe for a long period—even though a superfast or ultrafast service might already be available. Our experience and current practice suggest that an operator would be very unlikely to install outdated technology, and therefore such a delay would be unnecessary and extremely frustrating for consumers.

Finally, were this amendment to form part of the Bill, we consider that it would not have the effect intended by noble Lords. It amends paragraph 27A, which is an introductory provision and explains in very general terms what Part 4A of the code does. The amendment in itself does not amend any of the Bill’s substantive provisions, such as paragraph 27B of the code. Its drafting would not therefore operate within the rest of the Bill.

I understand what noble Lords are seeking to achieve in tabling the amendment. The Government absolutely share the aspiration of achieving gigabit-capable broadband across the whole country, but it is important that the Bill, and the Electronic Communications Code more widely, stay technology neutral for the sake of the consumer’s right to choose and to ensure that we do not allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good.

A number of noble Lords raised the question of the universal service obligation, which is the safety net that we legislated for and which went live on 20 March. It ensures that everyone across the UK has a clear and enforceable right to request high-speed broadband of at least 10 megabits a second from a designated provider and up to a reasonable cost threshold of £3,400. We keep the speed and quality parameters of the USO under review all the time to make sure that it keeps pace with consumers’ evolving needs, and our officials work closely with Ofcom regarding the implementation of the universal service obligation.

With that, I hope that the noble Lord will agree to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Adonis]

Before I make my concluding remarks, perhaps I may ask the Minister three further probing questions. I am obviously extremely grateful to her for her full response, but she raised three questions in my mind.

First, she raised some technical concerns about the amendment—in particular, that it amends not the code but only the introductory provisions. That raises an obvious question. If I return with this amendment on Report, properly drafted—indeed, I might invite the noble Baroness herself to provide a draft that the Government think is adequate—would the Government then be prepared to accept it? Indeed, if they proposed it themselves, they would not have to accept it.

That is important because there is an inconsistency in the noble Baroness’s argument in respect of the other two points. She said that it is unlikely that operators would want to install what she called “outdated technology”. I take that to mean technology that is not gigabit-capable. Not only is that unlikely but, if they were to do so on any large scale, of course the Government would then not meet their target, which is to have gigabit-capable coverage.

If the Government are committed to their target and believe that operators are unlikely anyway to want to take forward what she calls outdated technology, what is their objection to having this specification in the Bill? I do not understand what it is. I will give the Minister a moment further to consider her answer to that.

I was very concerned about a point she made about the Government being speed neutral. When Matt Warman spoke in the House of Commons, he did not use the phrase speed neutral but said the Government were technology neutral. I am sympathetic to technology neutral but totally unsympathetic—as I suspect colleagues in the Committee will be—to the idea that the Government are speed neutral. Speed neutral means that the Government may not actually be committed to having superfast broadband rolled out across the country in the first place. Indeed, if the Minister considers what she means by speed neutral and elucidates it a bit further for the Committee, it may be that we get to a position where we have underlying concerns about whether the Government are committed to their own target.

Can the Minister tell us what she means by speed neutral? Does she mean that the Government would be perfectly happy to have a national rollout of something less than gigabit-capable coverage? If she does not mean that and is committed, on behalf of the Government, to gigabit-capable coverage—which I think is what the Committee wants to see—why will the Government not accept an amendment of this kind, properly drafted, which does no more than hold them to their own public commitments?

[Baroness Barran]

With regard to the noble Lord’s first point about the technical amendment, he is of course right on one level. We—or, I am sure, the noble Lord himself or his team—could make technical amendments to make sure the Bill is coherent and consistent. We could address those points. However, the central issue is one of not delaying the implementation of the rollout and staying true to technology neutrality. I gather that speed neutral is a consequence of tech neutrality, so it would insert into the Electronic Communications Code a tech-specific provision that does not exist anywhere else in the code. The code is about regulating relationships between operators and landowners, not about technology. I will set out these points clearly for the Committee and the noble Lord in a letter.

[Lord Adonis]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for her last point about setting this out in a letter. It is very important to the Committee that the Government do so. I do not at all like this idea of speed neutrality, which implies that the Government’s target might not be worth the paper it is written on and that Parliament is about to grant the Government powers that in principle we support but whose purpose will not necessarily be met unless we can maintain the commitment to gigabit-capable coverage. I think the Minister understands that, because, while she said that speed neutrality is a consequence of technology neutrality, she has not said that the Government are not committed to gigabit-capable coverage across the country.

If the Government are committed to gigabit-capable coverage nationwide, it follows logically that it is not speed-neutral. The Committee is looking forward to hearing, in the Minister’s reply, how the Government will square that circle. What she says in that regard will have a big bearing on how we take this matter forward at Report, but on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.

[Lord Adonis]

I do not intend to speak on this amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

The noble Lord, Lord Fox, is listed to speak, but I understand that he does not wish to contribute at this stage. Lord Liddle?

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[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (Non-Afl)]

I shall beg noble Lords’ indulgence for a few minutes. I did not have an opportunity to speak at Second Reading, as I was advised not to come to Parliament, but I was assured that this would be an opportunity for me to do so.

I welcome the Bill and its aims to improve access to faster broadband and provide greater choice for tenants and leaseholders. My interest in the Bill, as people will see from my amendment, is very specific; it is to do with what we as a country see as critical infrastructure and how we protect our strategic interests to keep our critical infrastructure safe as technology becomes more complex.

I served on the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy from 2013 to 2016, when Huawei first came on to our radar, and two significant changes happened in that period. We saw the invasion of a sovereign state on the edge of Europe—the Russian annexation of Crimea—and the installation of President Xi Jinping as head of the Chinese Communist Party, bringing a more assertive, and perhaps what some would describe as more aggressive, tone into China’s international relations. Both have had a profound impact on geopolitics and potentially on security.

China’s companies have long been on our radar in the West for theft of intellectual property, from both business enterprises and research institutions. While I accept that there has always been a level of industrial espionage, with leakages from more advanced economies into those that are new challengers in particular sectors, the international community has attempted to deal openly with China on this. President Obama sought, and attained, an assurance from President Xi that the Chinese Government would clamp down on intellectual property theft, but there is little evidence that much has changed.

The difference is that China is now actively using its economic clout to advance its strategic and geopolitical interests, many of which run counter to our interests, and indeed our freedoms, here in the UK. Huawei is the world’s largest telecommunications company, and there is no reason that it should not be a trusted partner if it were like any other global telecoms firm. The point is that it is not. It has a long history of transgressions, not only in the West but more broadly. Moreover, it is subject to Chinese state security and other intelligence-related laws. These were updated in 2017 and now require Huawei, like other Chinese companies, to hand over data flowing through it to the Chinese state. It is effectively an arm of the state for the purposes of data capture and exploitation. If that was not the intention of the law, as Huawei tells us, the Chinese Government have done nothing to repudiate or amend the law in the period since. In other words, it is the intention of the Chinese Government to control worldwide data that Huawei collects, if they wish to.

There are examples of how this works. The African Union built a new headquarters in Addis Ababa in 2012. An accountant noticed that there was a huge energy consumption surge between midnight and the early hours of the morning in the period between 2012 and 2017. It transpired that data on Huawei’s servers was being transmitted back to Shenzhen covertly in those hours, hence the server activity.

There are many other examples of Huawei’s cyberactivities. The Equifax consumer credit hack recently resulted in millions of US consumers’ data being stolen. Additionally, 12.3 million Britons had their credit card details stolen. That hack was linked to Huawei and the People’s Liberation Army. I find it instructive that when BT involved Huawei in its 21st Century Network plan in 2005, information about Huawei’s involvement was withheld from Ministers and came to light some time later—in a 2013 report of the Intelligence and Security Committee, at the time chaired by Sir Malcolm Rifkind. If the Minister is not aware of its contents, I suggest she apprise herself of it, because it is fairly sobering.

I turn to my specific amendments. I know the UK Government’s position is that we want to roll out increased speed and capacity in our networks to benefit our businesses and consumers. I agree with that. However, the internet of things is here and requires improved capacity. I also agree with that. But Huawei’s involvement in this, even limited to 35% of the non-critical part of the infrastructure, is not something I feel comfortable with. It is incumbent on us to take our strategic national security vulnerabilities seriously, as we are planning not for the next five to seven years but for the next 20 to 30. There are several reasons for this. One is that we should not be so reliant on others for our sensitive and critical needs. One has only to look at the impact of the US-China trade war, and the impact on supply chains exacerbated now by Covid-19, to know that deglobalisation is starting. We in the UK are erecting barriers to our trade with the EU, yet think nothing of allowing companies that are more or less arms of other states into our systems, instead of developing our own capacities as France is attempting to do.

Another reason to be wary is that alternatives do exist. The US is proceeding with Ericsson, South Korea is using Samsung, but most importantly our Five Eyes allies have all rejected the Huawei option and are assessing alternatives. There is no burning imperative to take the decision now, and I fear it was rushed through. We will have to either repeal or regret this decision, unless we come up with safeguards that satisfy our concerns. The demonstration effect of letting Huawei into our system will lull other countries into the view that it is a safe alternative.

The Government tell us that the 35% of market share of Huawei infrastructure will be non-core and non-sensitive, but they do not acknowledge that the crucial difference between 4G and 5G is that, due to the internet of things, 5G networks are largely software-defined, so updates pushed to the network by the manufacturer can radically change how they operate. If a network is run by an untrusted vendor, that vendor can change what the network can do quite easily using software updates. The Australians have stressed this point over and over—namely, that you cannot safeguard against intent. If a provider is bound by its state’s law to do something, it is not its capability that is relevant but its intent. It is a combination of capability, where 5G is more vulnerable, and the intent of a provider that has to do a state’s bidding by law.

The Government also tell us that GCHQ has advised the National Security Council, and that they are acting on the advice of the NSC. However, it was pointed out in a Commons debate by Bob Seely MP on 10 March that the GCHQ Huawei oversight board has voiced deep concerns. According to him, the board found that it could

“only provide limited assurance that all risks to UK national security from Huawei’s involvement in the UK’s critical networks can be sufficiently mitigated … The Oversight Board advises that it will be difficult to appropriately risk-manage future products in the context of UK deployments, until the underlying defects in Huawei’s software engineering and … cyber security processes are remediated. At present, the Oversight Board has not yet seen anything to give it confidence in Huawei’s capacity to successfully complete the elements of its transformation programme”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/3/20; col. 201.]

As recently as February 2020, the US Government have claimed in a report that backdoors intended for law enforcement officials in carriers’ equipment, such as antennae and routers installed since 2009, can be accessed by certain vendors.

Amendments 9 and 14 are based very much on Labour and Conservative Party amendments as of 10 March in the other place, and are designed to remove high-risk vendors from the United Kingdom by 2022. Amendment 14 would require vendors who use Part 4A code rights to explain to the satisfaction of the regulator, which will probably be Ofcom, in a publicised plan how they will remove high-risk vendors should they form part of the network. BT has now extended the period that it will take to remove a high-risk vendor from its network to the end of 2022. It needs that period to disentangle itself from those partners. The amendments will ensure that even if high-risk vendors are allowed into the network in the early stages, as the Government propose, there is a clear plan for disentanglement from the outset.

I will conclude by explaining to the Committee why I have tabled these amendments. We all acknowledge that Virtual Proceedings are inadequate for proper scrutiny of legislation. My experience is that, even in normal proceedings, Ministers are sometimes not quite as well informed as they might be. On 27 January 2020, in response to the Statement on Huawei, I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, for her assurances regarding Huawei’s participation in terms of its market share. She replied:

“I give her and the whole House the absolute assurance that high-risk vendors never have been and never will be involved in our most sensitive networks”.—[Official Report, 27/1/20; col. 1300.]


She clearly did not know from the Intelligence and Security Committee’s 2013 report that BT had involved Huawei from quite far back. Huawei is present on the ground in our networks. I am sure that she did not intend in any sense to mislead the House, but many of us who are concerned about these matters would be reassured by having these amendments in the Bill, although I accept that it is perhaps not the ideal vehicle for them—in fact, it is concerned with some things that I wholeheartedly support. If the Government accepted the amendment it would strengthen the Minister’s hand in giving a clear plan to the telecommunications sector regarding its obligations. It will reassure many in the country who have a clearer view of our security risks.

I should have said that I do not intend to press the amendment.

[Lord Adonis]

The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, has made an extremely powerful speech. She has also been extremely ingenious in finding a way to bring this big geostrategic issue into the consideration of a Bill that has a very limited scope. However, given that it is to do with telecoms infrastructure and that one of the single biggest issues in upgrading our telecoms infrastructure is the degree to which we will be reliant on partnerships with Chinese companies, she is perfectly entitled to do so.

I assume that the clerks have ruled that the noble Baroness’s amendment is within the Bill’s scope, otherwise she would not be proposing it. Perhaps when she concludes at the end of this group, she can tell us that it has indeed been ruled within the scope of the Bill. If that is the case, I urge her to bring it back on Report, because, beyond the crisis, there is no more important issue facing Parliament than our relations with China. Indeed, the issue is related to the Covid crisis because the origins of the disease in Wuhan and the way the Chinese regime has dealt with it are central to the Covid-19 crisis. A critical issue that we are having to grapple with is how we get to the facts and the reforms to the international world health architecture that will be necessary which relate to the facts of the outbreak of this disease.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Alton of Liverpool, have expressed a wish to speak again, so I will call them in order and the Minister will answer after each noble Lord has spoken.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I shall make a brief comment and ask a question in response to what the noble Baroness has just said. She and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, both talked about assessments of telecoms and infrastructure security that have been made historically. Does she accept that relations with China are dynamic and appear to be particularly so at the moment, in dealing with the Covid epidemic and its fallout, which could have a significant bearing on future relations, not only with us but with the West. Are the Government cognisant of that?

Because I have not been following these things very closely, my question is this. Have the Government given a categorical undertaking to introduce a telecoms security Bill before the summer?

[Baroness Barran]

I think the noble Lord knows that the Government are absolutely cognisant of how international relations with multiple partners, including China, evolve. The current situation is obviously unprecedented. Forgive me, but I must ask the noble Lord to repeat his second question.

[Lord Adonis]

My question was: have the Government given a categoric undertaking to introduce a telecommunications security Bill before the summer?

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

Lord Adonis.

[Lord Adonis]

I do not wish to speak on this group.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I will be brief as well—the Committee has heard enough from us already. As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, this is a probing amendment to see where the Government’s ambitions point. There does not seem to be any logic in the current drafting and the amendment is a good way to try to extend it, but there are other ways. If the Government, either now or at later stages, accept amendments that mean that all legal occupiers of a property and the operators themselves can also initiate Part 4A orders, we will not need this amendment.

I will use this time to ask a question that was raised in the discussion on an earlier amendment, as I did not get the answer from the Minister at the time it was raised. She may not have that information to hand and, if she does not, I will be happy for her to write. I think that we are all conscious that not everything in this Bill will achieve the promised land of the gigabit-compliant internet that we are all looking for, so other things need to happen, but they will not be addressed in other places. Perhaps the Minister could give us a tour d’horizon of them, if necessary in writing. How and when will we get the legislation for all new homes to have open-access fibre connections? Will there be a harmonised UK-wide regime for permitting street works to lay fibre? How will we ensure that fibre-builders can make use of the utilities infrastructure—for gas, water and electricity—to facilitate access? We need to know that these things are happening if we are to be confident that the Bill will achieve what it aims to do, so can the Minister write to me about them?

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[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, again, I shall be extremely brief in the hope of eliciting a positive and ambitious reply from the Minister. This measure will inevitably be frustrating for operators because the current changes to the ECC allow access only where land is held in common ownership with the target premises. If we are not careful, in many cases that will be a barrier to the proper laying of cable.

To refer back to the Minister’s previous reply, I do not know what the evidence is but operators who have approached us on this question think that it is an important aspect. They may well need to access third-party land across multiple fields, for example, and it will help deployment, particularly in rural areas. That is where we are most mindful of the difficulties—where you cannot get a direct connection and you have to cross a field or other property which belongs to a third party and not the owner of the premises involved.

I would be very grateful to hear from the Minister just what the Government’s evidence has been and what the response to the consultation was, and why they have not managed to include this very sensible provision in the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Adonis]

I have nothing to add.

[Lord Livermore]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for tabling and introducing this amendment. It is relatively straightforward, but it could have far-reaching consequences for operators.

As the noble Lord outlined, the Bill currently defines “connected land” as being in common ownership with the target premises. Operators who have contacted us have expressed concern that this will limit their ability to roll out new technology, particularly in rural areas, where infrastructure may have to cross multiple fields to reach the desired building. They believe that removing the common ownership provision will also help accelerate their deployment of high-speed services to small businesses and other commercial properties.

Given our previous debates on the economic benefits of improving connection speeds, we should ensure that this Bill facilitates such work. There was clearly a rationale for including this provision in the Bill, so I hope that the Minister will be able to clarify the position and its practical impact on the provision of new connections. Should she accept that the requirement may have unintended consequences on the ability of operators to roll out new infrastructure, I hope that officials can look again at the detail and engage with the sector to address its concerns.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

Lord Adonis?

[Lord Adonis]

I will not be speaking to this amendment either.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara has tabled both the amendments in this group. I support my noble friend in his efforts to tease out information from the Government through these probing amendments, and I look forward to the Minister’s response. For my part, I want to be clear that, in both points under discussion here, by acknowledging the communication but not saying whether they agree or refuse, the granter has not stopped the process moving forward; my noble friend made that exact point in his contribution. All I am looking for is confirmation that that is not the case—that the process cannot be stopped by this becoming the default.

When speaking on an earlier group of amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, made the point that broadband should be treated as an essential service—an essential utility just like water, gas and electricity, and that we have to be ambitious. I agree that this is a good Bill and that we are having a good discussion with some good amendments, but I am not sure whether we are meeting the challenge. I look forward to the response to this group from the Minister—whether the noble Baroness or the noble Lord. I remember that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, when she was responding on the second group of amendments, made the point that we must not let the perfect become the enemy of the good. I agree with that quote from Voltaire in this context; it is spot on. But the point is that we have to be good. My fear is that is that we are being timid with some of this legislation, not good. I want to see the fire in the Government’s belly. I have not seen much fire today.

So, we are not pursuing perfection, but we have to be doing good. If we do not get this right, we will not do this issue justice and we will be back here again in a year or two’s time to take things further. I am looking for reassurance from the Government that there is fire in their belly, that they are getting on with things, and that this cannot stop the proposals in their tracks.

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Moved by

[Lord Adonis]

15: Clause 1, page 5, line 26, at end insert—
“(3) Any operator exercising Part 4A code rights is obliged to ensure that alternative operators can easily install the hardware needed to provide their own electronic communications service.(4) The definition of “easily” in sub-paragraph (3) is to be provided by Ofcom.”

[Lord Adonis]

The purpose of the amendment is to probe the Government’s thinking and provoke some debate on the issue of competition and open access in the provision of services on the back of the new infrastructure which the Bill makes possible. It is the same amendment that my colleague Chi Onwurah moved in the Standing Committee in the House of Commons. I draw colleagues’ attention to the very interesting debate in that Committee on 11 February 2020 at cols. 20-23. The interesting point about it is that the amendment itself is almost motherhood and apple pie. It is very weak. It is a declaration of what those of us with a history of engagement in telecoms competition issues think is the state of play anyway. The amendment says:

“Any operator exercising … code rights is obliged to ensure that alternative operators can easily install the hardware needed to provide their own electronic communications service … The definition of ‘easily’ … to be provided by Ofcom”,


the regulator.

The significant thing about that debate is that the Government opposed the amendment. Indeed, it was pushed to a Division in the House of Commons Standing Committee and there was a straight vote on it. Highly peculiarly, given the usual position of the parties on these issues, all the Conservatives voted against having any requirement for open access and competition in the Bill, even though Chi Onwurah’s amendment, as I read it, was a statement of existing government and Ofcom policy.

Reading the Minister’s response—this is Matt Warman, the Under-Secretary in the department of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran—left me more concerned than before. I would like to probe the noble Baroness further on two particular points that came out in his response. First, he made a straightforward anti-competition declaration about the policy intended to result from the Bill. In col. 22, he said:

“Far from improving competition in access to gigabit services, the amendment”—


this amendment I am now moving before your Lordships—

“may actually have the unintended consequence of doing the opposite. As the hon. Member knows, much of the cost of connecting premises is in the initial installation. The amendment could therefore seriously undermine the case for operators to make that initial installation, as they risk being undercut by second or third movers who would not have to bear the same costs.”—[Official Report, Commons, Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill Committee, 11/2/20; col. 22.]

That is a classic statement of the reason that operators, including Openreach, always give for not allowing others to be able to access their wayleaves and technology, but it is not one that the Government have supported in the past. Do the Government believe that allowing operators to ban competition and introduce anti-competitive requirements in contracts is justified as a means of getting this investment? That is a direct question for the Minister. I would like to know what the Government’s policy is. Do they support anti-competitive practices?

On the operation of the existing law, in col. 21 Matt Warman said:

“The Bill aims to support leaseholders to access the services they request from the providers they want”—


a straightforward statement of pro-competition policy.

“It already ensures that leaseholders are not per se locked in to services provided by a single provider; nothing in the Bill prevents a leaseholder with an existing gigabit-capable connection from one service requesting an alternative network to come in and request code rights as well.”—[Official Report, Commons, Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill Committee, 11/2/20; col. 21.]

Can the Minister point me to the provisions ensuring that

“leaseholders are not per se locked in to services provided by a single provider”?

How does that provision square with the Government’s resistance in the House of Commons to this amendment, on the grounds that anti-competitive practices were justified to support operators making investments in extending fibre to the home? I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst. He is not there. We will move to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. I beg your pardon; I call the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

I have received no notification that anyone wishes to speak after the Minister, so we return to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.

[Lord Adonis]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister. As she says, there are drafting issues, but I am sure that if they were the only concern we would all be happy for the Government to do the drafting for us. There seems to be a contradiction in the Government’s position. May I ask the Minister to clarify it? Is she saying that under the Bill as drafted, and the terms of the agreement with the proposed Part 4A order, alternative operators will or will not have easy access to new infrastructure? To prevent people unfairly undercutting initial investors, it is important that they should not. It is not clear to me and that point seems to go to the heart of the Government’s argument. Are they arguing that operators will have easy access, so that what is proposed here is irrelevant; or that operators will not have easy access, which is intentional because if they did, there would be undercutting? Which of those is the Government’s position?

[Baroness Barran]

The Government’s position is that there is fair access, in that any provider can apply for a Part 4A order of their own to deliver a service. Alternative operators have equal access to the existing operator or other alternatives.

[Lord Adonis]

That is a very helpful response because it seems to indicate a possible way forward in a redrafted amendment that underpins fair access. In my proposed new sub-paragraph (3) to new paragraph 27F, instead of saying

“that alternative operators can easily install the hardware”

it should say that they can install their hardware on a fair basis. My sub-paragraph (4) would then be the definition of fair, to be provided by Ofcom. I do not want to press the Minister too far, but can she at least undertake at this stage to look at such an amendment, without making any commitments to come back on Report, and write to me about it?

[Baroness Barran]

What I am saying is that we believe that we already have a fair system and that this could best be explored in the accompanying regulations. However, I will be happy to write to the noble Lord on the point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness but she opens herself to the argument that I am seeking simply to insert into the Bill what the Government have said they intend to do anyway, and I may come back to this point on Report. However, on that basis, accepting what the noble Baroness has just said about writing to me and acknowledging the contributions made by my noble friend Lord Stevenson and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 15 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 18. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, will come in on Amendment 19, which has a similar bent but a slightly different way of moving forward on the same issue.

These are probing amendments to ask why there is a need for a statutory limit on the expiry of Part 4A code rights. It has reached the stage where Part 4A code rights are clearly necessary, now and in the future, and not limited to 18 months, which might well be interrupted by all sorts of things, not necessarily excluding matters such as those we are currently experiencing. We are saying here that this stems from our having had representations from operators about the imposition of the 18-month time limit. While there may be one, no explanation has been given for why that period has been chosen and I look forward to hearing from the Minister what it was. The proposal has been included in the Bill without any consultation, which causes us concern. That is why we have tabled Amendment 18, which suggests that before any final decision is taken, there should be a wider consultation on this.

What we surely want to see is no roadblocks, uncertainties or hindrances, real or apparent, for those who might, wilfully or otherwise, wish to frustrate progress on getting access to above-ground fibre broadband for the home. If there is to be a sensible time limit, it ought to be practical and should not create costs. If there has not been consultation, there should be, so the amendment suggests that, instead of putting into primary legislation a figure that seems to have been plucked from the air, we should have a proper process that would arrive at something that people would understand and might support better. I beg to move.

[Lord Adonis]

I do not wish to speak on this group.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

In that case, we will move on to the noble Lord, Lord Fox.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for introducing the Bill. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, who is assisting her, for contacting me to see what issues I might raise. I hope that both of them will be somewhat reassured, as in my response I indicated that I would not cover the subject matter of the Bill but would speak on behalf of my colleagues who cannot and should not be present because of social distancing. I speak in this Second Reading on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Benches. My colleagues who lead the team for this Bill are my noble friends Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Fox.

It is good that the House is moving forward on the current need for us to conduct our business in virtual form. The Bill is about new technologies, so perhaps it is especially puzzling that the House of Lords has not managed to resolve the need to sit virtually on all aspects of its business by now. My task therefore is to put on the record excerpts from my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones in relation to the Second Reading of the Bill needing to be held in the Chamber today. At his request, I will read from his letter to the Procedure Committee.

“Dear Lord Chairman, I am writing to express both concern and disappointment at the decision of the Procedure Committee to conduct the Second Reading of the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill not virtually but in the Chamber on 22 April. I am the digital spokesperson on our Liberal Democrat Benches and would have expected to wind up in the Second Reading debate. Chris, Lord Fox, our BEIS spokesperson, would have opened for us. A decision which compels those of us who have so far stayed safe in lockdown to attend in person in the Chamber if we are to participate is quite extraordinary when, of all the virtual proceedings possible, a Second Reading debate would be the most technically and technologically straightforward. Neither I nor Lord Fox will be attending on 22 April. We will be speaking in Committee whenever it occurs, but wanted to leave you and the Procedure Committee in no doubt as to our views on this decision. With regards, Tim Clement-Jones.”

I know that both my noble friends feel passionately about the huge possibilities of new technology and how vital it is that the UK leads in this area while at the same time looking closely at the possible risks and down sides, and I know that they look forward to participating in the Bill virtually in due course. I understand that the Procedure Committee has accepted the proposition that those unable to be present today—we have very small numbers in the Chamber—will be able to give their Second Reading speeches about the key principles and concerns of the Bill in Committee, although that usually looks at only the detail of a Bill. That is certainly welcome and it sounds as though this situation will not arise again.

However, when I see that my noble friend Lady Harris had to swear in in person when she should be shielding at home so that she can continue to participate virtually in our proceedings, I do wonder when the House of Lords will catch up. Having just observed the hybrid Questions to the acting Prime Minister, Dominic Raab, from the Commons Public Gallery, it seems clear that there are ways of doing things in the Commons that can be very effective. Members asking Questions remotely were interspersed with those present in the Chamber and were clearly visible on monitors set up around the Chamber. Not only could we see and hear each of them ask their Questions, we could also see their reaction to the Minister’s response. I know that we are all learning and I appreciate the opportunity to put my colleagues’ concerns on the record.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

It is difficult to follow the noble Baroness because the House of Commons is sitting both physically and virtually. It has not moved to being entirely virtual, but she is making the case for moving to entirely virtual. That is emphatically what the House of Commons has not done, which is part of the reason it has maintained such a high media and public profile, whereas I am afraid your Lordships’ House has almost vanished from sight so far as the public are concerned.

[Baroness Northover]

I take very seriously what the noble Lord has said. One of the things that emerged yesterday was that each House will be looking carefully at how the other operates and what works well. What I am saying in this learning process, having just watched how it worked in hybrid fashion in the Commons, is that it is very interesting. Clearly, we have a different demographic in this House and there may be more people who need to work virtually. It is therefore exceptionally important that we place their health first and foremost, but there may well be ways in which we can learn from how the Commons is dealing with things and make sure that we are as effective as the second Chamber of Parliament needs to be in holding the Government to account.

Covid-19: Public Interest Reporting

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Lord has covered a number of points. I absolutely echo his sentiment about the importance of journalists and those involved in public service broadcasting at the moment; not only are they a trusted source of facts, but they will have a role to play in rallying communities and getting the message across about how we can keep ourselves and our families safe, and protect our NHS. Undoubtedly, they have a critical role. I know the noble Lord understands the pace at which government has had to work over the past couple of weeks. In a number of these areas, it may be worth waiting a couple more days and getting the solution right, rather than being too hasty.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, might this be an appropriate moment for the over-75s to be given back their free licences?

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Lord might not be aware that an announcement was made about the changes to licences for the over-75s due to be effective from 1 August.

Covid-19: Business Interruption Insurance

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

On my noble friend’s final point about the opportunity to review those issues here, I understand that that will be dealt with through the usual channels as speedily as possible. On the need for cash and the need to change regulations, I think that is the point I was trying to make a few moments ago about how we sequence this. Cash flow appears to be the single most pressing issue, and that is where we are focused.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, it is my understanding that the Statement is not being repeated later today. Could the Minister take back to the usual channels the acute concern about that? This Statement is the single most important business that Parliament will conduct this week, and I sense that noble Lords would like the opportunity to ask the Government questions about it and to give their views.

[Baroness Barran]

I understand from my noble friend on the Front Bench that an offer was made to repeat the Statement here today, but the usual channels agreed that the economic debate tomorrow will be used as a platform to debate it.

Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [HL]

Lord Adonis Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Monday 3rd February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

My Lords, it is always a delight to follow the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, with all the experience he brings to these matters.

I am relieved that my noble friend Lord Snape has been brave enough to open a discourse on that Rubik’s Cube that is the layout and signage of New Street station. I am relieved that I am not the only one who always gives myself 10 minutes extra in case I am sitting the red lounge thinking that I am going to Banbury when in fact I am sitting in the blue lounge on my way to Stoke. As my noble friend said, it is important that, for our foreign visitors to these Games, someone has a look at it. I am looking at the Minister—I am sure that she personally will not be having a look at it, but she may know somebody who can.

We are once again under starter’s orders with this important Bill to enable Birmingham and the West Midlands to be the best possible host for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Showcasing the whole West Midlands region is a crucial part of the Games experience, for our visitors and for West Midlanders.

As a former MEP representing Birmingham in the European Parliament for most of the 1980s and 1990s, I have a lifelong affection for the city. I am also aware, as are all noble Lords, of the unique opportunity that the £778 million of sports investment will mean for the city and for the region. Birmingham will not turn its back on such investment given that, 12 years after the financial crash, the city is still recovering in terms of employment, wages and productivity. Leaving the EU has also brought uncertainty to a region and a city that enjoyed the economic benefits of our connectivity with Europe over several decades.

Speaking of connectivity, I will add my voice to the rising call to keep HS2, with all its benefits for the West Midlands and the north?

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Hear, hear.

[Baroness Crawley]

The noble Lord only came in to hear that.

Going back to the Bill, the Games will see a brand new aquatic centre, a redeveloped athletics stadium and 1,400 new homes. Some 71 Commonwealth nations and territories will take part, with 6,500 athletes and officials expected to attend. The global audience for these Games will be 1.5 billion, which is astounding. Birmingham and the West Midlands will be showcased to the rest of the world.

As we understand it, more than 1 million tickets will be made available. As a former chair of the West Midlands regional cultural consortium, I am particularly glad to see that an important cultural, trade, tourism and investment programme will be part of the Games experience. I hope that as many local children and young people as possible will be involved in both the sporting and cultural sides of the Games, so that they feel that they own the Games, rather than having the Games imposed on them. What more can the Minister tell us about the engagement of local schools, colleges and youth organisations in the Games?

I was particularly interested to read about the role of community champions; I know how important they were in the Olympics. They are essential if there are to be long-term benefits for local people. I also understand that Birmingham 2022 will have the first integrated—and biggest ever—parasports offering, which is fantastic. Alongside that, there is a potential for more female medals than male, for the first time ever—not that we feminists are at all competitive.

As the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and other noble Lords said, 19 sports across 11 days at venues across the West Midlands presents a tremendous opportunity to seal a sustainable legacy for local sport in the region well into the 2020s and 2030s. Local SMEs will see 4,000 contracts on offer, worth up to £300 million. Let us hope that this will enable a broad and diverse range of businesses to bid for, and secure, work around the Games.

We now need to get on with it, as time is running short. As the noble Lord, Lord Foster, said, the Government must deal constructively with concerns about the Bill, such as those of the News Media Association, representing local, regional and international media, on issues such as unimpeded, lawful newspaper reporting, advertising, sales and distribution during the Games. The Bill has cross-party support and we are told that progress is already being made in areas such as accessibility, sustainability, ticketing and business engagement. That all sounds very positive, but previous calls by this House for continual scrutiny need to be taken seriously, especially on issues such as human rights and modern slavery, which were brought up so effectively by the noble Baroness, Lady Young.

As a vice-president of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, I am drawn to Part 3 of the Bill, which aims to prohibit: the unauthorised sale of Games tickets; the promotion of non-sponsor products, services and businesses; and trading at or near Games locations at certain times. I ask the Minister to ensure that government support is continuously available to Birmingham and to West Midlands local authorities, especially their trading standards departments, which will be at the forefront of ensuring fair trading and minimising ticket touting. The Minister will be aware of the very difficult cuts that have been made over the last 12 years to trading standards departments, and of how important these local authority departments are to the smooth running of the Games.

With these caveats, I wish the Bill well. Birmingham and West Midlands are really up for it. I have even joined a gym. I have not actually been yet, but I have joined—one step in the right direction. We can all share in the excitement that the Games will bring to our region and to our country.

Problem Gambling

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I absolutely agree, and that is why we are doing so. The industry is regulated by the Gambling Commission, which was set up to do that. One of the licence conditions is that those in the industry should behave responsibly. Having said that, we have made recent changes. It is not just a question of the amount of money spent on treatment, important though that is, but a question of preventing problem gambling in the first place. I accept my noble friend’s point, which is that while the statistics are not perfect and debatable, and the number of problem gamblers small, there is a wider problem to the extent that, even if there are fewer than 1% problem gamblers, they affect a wider number of people, including families, communities and so on. However, the figures are not particularly big in numerical terms and are not, from all the evidence we have, growing; they are under 1%. A lot of work has been done on increasing the preventive element as well, not just treatment. There has been agreement on using new technology to divert advertising away from online gambling. More people are gambling online, so using online technology is a modern response to that.

We want to increase the availability of online messaging to review the tone and content of gambling companies’ marketing. We have launched a modern, up-to-date online system, GamStop, which is not perfect but is making a significant difference. It is a real-time self-exclusion scheme and the results so far have been good. That is in addition to the changes in advertising. The Government have not sat still and done nothing. We understand that changes have been made and that we must monitor the evidence to make sure that we are up to date. As I say, this is not cast in stone and, together with our advisers, the Gambling Commission, we will monitor the situation to make sure that we keep up to date.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I commiserate with the Minister for having to repeat this embarrassing Statement. Does he realise that it essentially shows that the Government have become the pawns of the big gambling industry? He has said, with the full authority of the state behind him, that the Government are not prepared to move at all to tackle a massive social evil that is wrecking hundreds of thousands of lives, including those of young people who are becoming addicted to gambling in their early and mid-teens, which will then afflict them for life. Instead, the state is relying on the industry that has caused these evils to regulate itself by making paltry contributions, given the overall figures involved in this industry.

The noble Lord started to lose the House when he accused the right reverent Prelate of exaggerating. He made a compelling argument, along with the noble Lord, Lord Foster, about exactly what the social evils are and why the Government should be addressing them. When people come to look back at this massive social evil of gambling, they will equate it with the problems caused by tobacco addiction in the previous generation, when, after huge rearguard actions by the industry involved—particularly on the issue of advertising—the state finally moved. After that, everyone said, “Why has it taken so long?” The big issue that the Government will have to address is: when will they move to end the wall-to-wall advertising that promotes people into gambling? To my mind, that is morally and socially unjustifiable. Until the Government start to move on banning gambling advertising, everything they do in the meantime will seem beside the point.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The noble Lord has made many predictions in this House and we will see whether he is right. If it were true that the present Government were pawns of the gambling industry, they would not have reduced the FOBT limit from £100 to £2.