Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Bhatia

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

[Lord Bhatia (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I did not participate in the previous debates on this Bill because my broadband system was not fully connected. It was difficult to see or to print out the Hansard reports of the previous sessions.

I wish to speak to Amendment 22 and largely support what the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Clement-Jones, have said. The amendment would enable the court to make an order requiring a landlord to allow an operator to provide an electronic communication service to a leased premises. Such a service has become very important in the current Covid-19 climate, when many of us are housebound.

It is very disturbing to hear that BT might sell off Openreach. If that is true, all the timetables and budgets will have to be revised, and it will have huge consequences for the people who need broadband for their business and for individuals in their homes. Due to the Covid-19 lockdown, everyone is homebound and working from home. To participate in this debate, I have had to print out a copy of the Bill and the Hansard reports of the previous debates. In my home, I use Virgin’s services. My daughter uses BT internet. Both systems have strengths and weaknesses but are largely reliable.

My Virgin system is excellent and rarely fails, but when it fails it is a big problem. Some months ago, the Virgin fibre service had an unfortunate accident. Someone had slashed through the fibre cables, which, as I understand it, are deep in the ground. It took some weeks before the engineers, who worked day and night, traced the location of the fibre that had been cut and had to be reconnected. On the telephone—the only way of contacting Virgin—we were told that the system would soon be back in service, and finally the service was restored.

As I said earlier, there was a weakness, but users have been given no compensation for the system failure. There was no email service through which Virgin could be contacted. The only way of doing so was by telephone, and it took many hours to be connected, as thousands of users were trying to reach Virgin. As I said, to date, no compensation has been received. The problem with BT internet is that it is provided through open copper wires, which can be cut down due to falling trees or other accidents. As a result, delays are inevitable.

Although the debate has centred around blocks of flats and tenants who are unable to get internet, there is little or no mention of citizens in urban areas who have low incomes and are unable to pay the charges for the service. The Covid crisis has made many people jobless, as they are on zero-hours contracts. Some time ago one often used to hear mention of IT and broadband poverty.

I have three questions for the Minister. First, will he please clarify whether BT is going to sell off Openreach? Secondly, if Openreach is sold, is there a plan to ensure that the Openreach buyer will be able to continue the services seamlessly and on the same budget and timeframe? Thirdly, will the Government provide free services to those who are unable to pay for broadband and other services?

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

There have been some excellent speeches in this debate and I fully support the amendment moved so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Fox. We are debating matters of fundamental political importance, and I disagree with the suggestion of the noble Baroness who said that this can all be left to regulators. The fact is that in these areas far too much has been left to regulators. These are questions of politics and whether Ministers are really driving progress. That is why I think that regular reports to Parliament are a very good idea.

When listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, I have felt that the Bill has been presented to us as a sort of trifling or very minor measure, but in fact it is on a huge subject. In the Conservative manifesto, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, will confirm in his concluding remarks, the Government made a very bold commitment to full fibre and gigabit-capable broadband for every home and business by 2025. It would be good if the Minister could reaffirm that that is indeed the Government’s commitment. The case for it has grown: we saw in the general election the cry from the left-behind areas of the country. They put their trust in Mr Johnson because he said that he would look after them. It is absolutely essential to the fostering of new enterprise in, for instance, west Cumbria, where I live, that we have top-class, gigabit-capable broadband. The question is: will we get it? It is a big political question and the Government have to satisfy us that they will deliver on those promises.

The Covid crisis has made the question of access to broadband also a fundamental question of equality. I am struck by a lot of the research into the damage to children’s opportunities being done by schools being closed. Some of the greatest damage is where families do not have access to broadband and where schools are not providing teaching online, yet those inequalities could be addressed by a vigorous Government who were prepared to make sure that the infrastructure was available to everybody.

I support this legislation, which gives the service providers due rights over landlords. I am worried that it is not enough. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, descended into lots of verbiage—if I might put it so crudely—about the balance of powers in this Bill, which makes me think that, actually, it does not really give the service providers what they need to aggressively provide a more universal service. We cannot put obligations on providers to provide a universal service unless they have the muscle to be able to do it.

In the Conservative manifesto, not only was £5 billion of public funding promised to promote these digital objectives, but

“a raft of legislative changes to accelerate progress”

will be introduced. I suppose this Bill is one of those legislative changes. We know we have got the telecoms security Bill coming later this year, and we know that there is a furious debate going on in government about what it should say. How much are those debates about the telecoms security Bill going to delay the 2025 objective? The Government should be straight with the electorate about the trade-offs here. We need an indication in the Bill of how far it is going towards this raft of legislative changes to produce great progress, what other legislative changes are going to be proposed, and on what timescale. If this is a trifling measure, what is the big measure that is going to produce the results?

I very much support this amendment and look forward to the Minister’s reply, because I want to see clear commitment to action that will be reported on to Parliament on a regular basis.