Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Debate between Lord Livermore and Lord Adonis

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

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.