Copper Wire Telecoms

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Tim Farron

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the withdrawal of copper wire telecommunications networks.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Mundell. Sometime ago the Government decided that the copper wire network—the analogue service—would be switched off in about December 2025. I can understand the reasoning behind the decision that the switchover would be industry led. We can see the sense in that, given how the telecommunications market operates these days. We have come some way from the days when everything was held under the General Post Office, which was the responsibility of a Government Minister. Although I understand the logic, I am afraid I have to bring a fairly simple and blunt message to the Minister this morning: it simply is not working.

It is apparent from the communications that I have with the industry and my constituents that the private companies are focusing on what matters to them rather than the needs and wishes of their customers and the communities we are elected to serve. The Government, after having made the decision that the switchover should be led by the industry, now have to step up to the plate, take charge and make sure that it is done properly. We have until the end of 2025 to get this right, but in terms of Government policy and given that there will be a general election in that period, we know that that sort of timescale can pass in the blink of an eye. This matters to people throughout the United Kingdom. It predominantly causes concern in rural communities because, in the switchover from analogue to digital communications, we have been the ones who have constantly been left behind—although I know that there are also urban communities that will be affected.

In Shetland and Orkney, our particular concern is around the resilience of the digital system—the fibre-optic system to which we will be transferred. For people in London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, power cuts are significant events because they are so rare. For us they are just part of everyday living, especially in the winter months. Occasionally we suffer catastrophic weather episodes such as we had last December, when parts of Shetland were left without electricity for six days. I am not always Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks’ biggest fan, but it really put in a shift along with council workers, the coastguard and other emergency services. It did a remarkable job in getting people connected back to electricity and making sure that those in the more hard-to-reach parts of Shetland were properly cared for.

Such events are occasional but not unknown. As we all suffer more and more catastrophic weather events in future, we have to assume that there will be a growing pattern of disruption for which the new system, when it is introduced to us, has to be fit for purpose; at the moment, with the lack of battery powered back-up, there simply is not that. Having a telephone line that we can plug in to the socket at the wall is very often the only means of communication left to people in such circumstances.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for securing a really important debate. One such incident happened in the lakes and the dales and Eden just a week and a half ago when we had serious snowy weather, which locked people in their communities, and many places— the Langdales, Coniston, Eden Valley and so on—lost electricity. During that time, people lost access to digital connectivity because the electricity went down. Having access to analogue and copper wire telephones gives people the opportunity to get care and reach out for help—to not be isolated. Does he agree that the Government need to get a handle on this issue to make sure that isolated communities are not cut off from the communications they will desperately need in these far too frequent extreme weather events?

[Mr Carmichael]

I absolutely do. By way of illustration, I received an email from a constituent in Walls, in the west side of Shetland, describing what life was like for him, his family and his neighbours during the six-day power outage last year. He said:

“Power was down…Internet was down…Heating was down (Our house has a gas cooker thank goodness)...The roads were impassable to cars for most of that period. 4x4 pick-ups could get through latterly into the week…The local shop was closed because it needed power to price items…Advice from the emergency services was that in the event of an emergency we were to wave down a passing police car. (This rather desperate advice was pretty hopeless, but more hopeless given road condition)…I need to emphasise that during this week an analogue phone with self-powered phone line was THE critical means of external contact with the outside world other than listening to the news on a battery-powered transistor radio.”

Rural Communities: Government Support

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Tim Farron

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your guidance once again, Sir Charles. It is a real privilege to follow everybody in this debate, but especially my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke), who succeeded in securing this debate and made an outstanding speech at the beginning.

I want to cover many issues we have already talked about, and I will start with farming. Farming is crucial to feeding our country, protecting and restoring our environment, tackling climate change, promoting biodiversity and underpinning the landscape that our tourism economy depends on, but it has been badly let down. Farmers across my community feel angry with this Government for many reasons—including the trade deals with New Zealand and Australia that threw them under the bus—but specifically, as my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome mentioned, the botched transition from the old scheme to the new scheme.

We believe in environmental land management schemes, and we think the project is one worth supporting. However, the Government promised £2.4 billion in their manifesto for farming in England, and the latest figures for 2022-23 show £1.97 billion for agriculture in England. Environmental schemes have increased in their expenditure to farmers by £145 million a year—great—but basic payments have fallen by £490 million. We see upland livestock farm incomes down by 44% and lowland livestock farm incomes down by 41%.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I remind hon. Members of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. If the Government find it so difficult to put money into farming in the way my hon. Friend describes, could they not perhaps give a bit more attention to ensuring that farmers get a fair price for their product at the farm gate? The Groceries Code Adjudicator has not achieved what we wanted it to, but surely somebody, at some point, has got to address the fact that that market is failing, and it fails to the disadvantage of our farmers and rural communities.

[Tim Farron]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for making that point; he is absolutely right. The Groceries Code Adjudicator has the capacity to potentially make a big difference for farmers and growers—producers of all kinds. But the reality is that it does not have the sanctions and remit. It is not allowed to take third-party referrals from the likes of us or the NFU on behalf of farmers who are being stitched up by processors or retailers. It is absolutely right that the Government support farming, but the market should be fixed so it does not exploit our farmers either.

We already have a situation where we are only 58% self-sufficient in farming in this country. We are never going to deliver the environmental goods we need if we do not have those expert hands on the land delivering those environmental policies. Our landscapes are at risk of changing radically, dramatically and negatively to undermine—for example—the £3.5 billion-a-year tourism economy of the English Lake district.

Moving on to broadband, Project Gigabit is a good idea, but there will be many people who miss out. Thousands of homes in my part of Cumbria are outside the scope, or in deferred scope, of Project Gigabit. B4RN—the Minister may be aware of it—or Broadband for the Rural North is an excellent local community interest company. It could absolutely connect all of those homes in—I am going to mention them now—parts of Sedbergh, Kaber, Murton, Long Marton, Winton, Warcop, Ormside, Hilton, Hartley and Bleatarn.

I mention those places because, if the broadband voucher system were still available, they could be connected now through B4RN, if it was not for the fact that Project Gigabit is trying to only ride one horse, and is not prepared to accept that not every issue has to be dealt with in the same way—one size does not fit all. I ask the Minister to look specifically at those communities and consider restoring the vouchers to them so that they can be connected well and connected now.

I want to briefly move on to buses. The right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) rightly points out the importance and value of the £2 bus fare, which I think has increased footfall or “busfall” by about 10%—it certainly has in my community. The £2 bus fare does a fat load of good if there is no bus. I want this Government to give local authorities like mine the power to run their own bus companies and the funding to ensure that they work. Buses often do not make a profit, but they are the oil that ensures that the economy works in communities to keep people connected and to ensure that people can get to work and school, or make use of leisure facilities. Back our buses.