Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Lord Maxton

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, I shall be brief. I have in my pocket a mobile phone owned by Virgin Media. Virgin Media uses the EE spectrum. As far as I know, there is no financial connection between Virgin Media and EE, but Virgin uses the EE network. Could the Minister explain that to me?

[Lord Fox]

My Lords, I am fortunate to follow the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, whose comprehensive support of his amendment means that I need say very little, but I will make a couple of points.

We have talked in various debates on the digital economy about how wireless and broadband are converging, but there is one area where we do not want them to converge. The paroxysms that we are putting ourselves through around the broadband issue are because of how broken that market is, and there is a firm danger that we may be sending the wireless market down the same route. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, pointed out, we had an equitable spectrum distribution, but there is a clear and present danger that we will move even further from that equity, with two dominant players and two very small players. The purpose of this amendment is to work in advance of that, so that we will not subsequently be debating the brokenness of the wireless market as we have been, from time immemorial, in respect of the broadband market.

When this amendment was debated in Committee, the Minister’s response was very much about leaving Ofcom to choose. He hazarded that, from the Government’s point of view,

“it also strikes us as unlikely that Ofcom, having determined appropriate rules …, would immediately nullify the results”.—[Official Report, 31/1/16; col. 1196]

In other words, it is up to Ofcom to decide, and it is not going to decide on this issue. That actually makes this amendment more important, not less. Ofcom has clearly recognised that there is a potential issue here, and it has gone tentatively down the route of limiting access to the 2.3 gigahertz spectrum while completely ignoring the 3.4 gigahertz spectrum. I think that the case has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for us to take account of that in the Bill and, for that reason, I support the amendment.

Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Lord Maxton

1st reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 31st January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, I too support these amendments, which are on the right lines. My only reservation is that if BT is already the owner of the line into a property—it could be a commercial one—who is responsible if a repair needs to be done: Openreach or BT?

[Lord Fox]

My Lords, we associate ourselves with Amendment 20. I was under the impression that Ofcom was already looking at the process of legal separation, and if this is designed to strengthen its arm and make sure that it happens, then we approve. At Second Reading, I talked about the desirability of full structural separation. We know that the pension deficit has been used as a reason. When that calculation was made, was the full effect of the EE acquisition factored into the pension equation? Now that there have been substantial changes in the make-up of the corporate parent, can a different argument be made on pensions?

In the recesses of my mind I recall something being attempted in York along the lines of Amendment 21. It foundered because there was no separation in the BT/Openreach model and the route to market proved very difficult. Perhaps to be successful Amendment 21 needs Amendment 20, if not full structural separation.