Digital Economy Bill

Baroness Byford Excerpts

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

[Lord Fox (LD)]

I will speak to Amendment 2 and make some comments on Amendment 1. Like the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, I welcome the principle of a USO and we are having a healthy debate now. I will probe the Minister in detail about how the Government will respond to the Ofcom report. I was frankly surprised by the report’s language when it came out—it was a mere twinkle in our eye when the House last debated this. It referred throughout to “decent” broadband as a starting point, rather than “world-class” or “leading” or any of those things. As the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, outlined, the work that has gone into modelling the need for broadband is, in one way, completely pointless. Most noble Lords are old enough to remember a time before the internet, or the industries which now use that medium, even existed. You could not have modelled how much bandwidth you would need today 10, 15 or 20 years ago. The industry that will use this network has not been invented so we cannot know what is necessary. Decent is fine but frankly we should be looking for the best possible. In Amendment 1 the noble Lord has set a very high bar.

In Amendment 2 we have taken as our text—as I am sure noble Lords can recognise—scenario 3 from the Ofcom report. It is really to test two things. One is the universal part of the USO. We are of the persuasion that universal means universal rather than 99-point-whatever-it-is per cent. I would be grateful to hear from the Minister what he believes universal means. On timing, we have heard various claims that by 2020 at the flick of a finger we could all have 10 megabits. There are many people where I come from in the countryside and from all over the country who would be very surprised if they could get 10 megabits. They are still struggling with ones and twos and upload speeds of practically nothing. The fact that apparently this is so easy and frictionless yet so far away for so many people seems slightly at odds. The point of Amendment 2 is very much to set what I think the previous speaker would call a less ambitious target, but one that we believe should be eminently achievable. I misspoke because it is not a target; the USO is a minimum. The noble Lord who spoke previously used the word “target”. One of the dangers is that this becomes the limit to our ambitions and it should not be. In many senses Amendment 2 is entirely compatible with Amendment 1. We have to get to Amendment 2 as a minimum but Amendment 1 and all the ambition enshrined within it can still be part of this formula.

Looking forward, we will be talking later about how we can assess the progress of this. At the moment we want an amendment that is designed to give the Minister enough pressure on Ofcom and Ofcom enough pressure on the service providers to deliver a minimum standard. It is inconceivable and unacceptable that we should be so down the pecking order at the moment. We will talk about other structural issues through the course of Committee but as a very minimum we believe Amendment 2 sets a standard.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendments 3 and 7 in this group. I reiterate the expressions of support for this Bill given by earlier speakers. There are many aims in this Bill that I support but some specifics are worth raising at greater length. I perhaps should remind the Committee of our family interests in farming although, as far as this Bill is concerned, we are without any form of modern communication in any of our buildings. That might change in the future but clearly we are not an interested player in that part. I am a member of the CLA.

Amendment 3 is quite detailed—so I will not read it out—and tries again to tie things down more specifically than they are in the Bill. It seeks to guarantee clarity over what the consumer can expect from a universal service obligation on broadband. It will ensure that the USO delivers a minimum speed of 10 megabits—perhaps we might have further conversations about that—and that this is reviewed to reflect technological advances and increased demand. Once enforced the USO must also allow those who are not provided with access to broadband at the set minimum speeds a simple means of seeking financial redress if that is not resolved, which they can then use to find an alternative means of getting connected.

The CLA believes that this redress should mirror the reasonable cost threshold, which should sit just above the current landline threshold, at £4,000 per property. Small, rural communities should be able to pool this money to invest in alternative technologies and connection schemes that provide them with faster and more reliable—and potentially cheaper—connections compared to its being done individually. For these most remote premises, making use of a wide range of technologies, including wi-fi networks, satellite and mobile data to help provide universal coverage, will help to ensure that the introduction of the USO is a success and should be encouraged.

On my Amendment 7, which is about “may” and “must”, I need not argue the toss of the wording between the two words but feel strongly that “may” is a facilitator and “must” is a direction. I am sure that other noble Lords are probably heartily sick of receiving complaints from friends, neighbours, colleagues and family about the broadband service which they either have or are still unable to achieve at all. I have often spoken in this House of the areas that are not covered at all; of the services that advertise speeds “up to” but which achieve only a fraction of the implied promise; and of the difficulty of obtaining a helpful response from service providers when things go wrong.

The speed of change on the digital technology front is such that the Government must keep up with both the challenges and changes facing them and with their implications for society. No one can doubt that Ministers are very busy people, who are subject to a variety and quantity of pressures. I feel strongly that Parliament should assist them by indicating those priorities that are paramount. Most of us can have no idea of future provisions that will affect the universal service obligation. We ought to insist that whenever that obligation is affected, the Minister has to look closely at it more closely.

I wholeheartedly support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn. I merely suggest that it be made clear that most farms—we spoke about rural areas—GP practices and businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises but are often not regarded in that way. My concern may be unnecessary, but I have read a great deal about the difficulties experienced by these enterprises, which are located in rural areas and which may not be recognised as belonging in that category of small or medium-sized businesses. Only last year, those who wanted to put forward their claims for the single farm payment were totally unable to do so in some areas because there was no broadband available, and in fact the department had to revert to accepting written paper applications, which people had been using for years.

My amendments are probing amendments, but it is important that our broadband is strengthened and is available to all. As was quoted, the NFU has suggested a speed of 30 megabits per second. Reliability is absolutely key to success in any area. As the noble Lord who spoke just before me quite rightly pointed out, many of the new businesses that have been formed would never have been started had they not had broadband access. If you look at rural areas and the growth in small and medium-sized businesses, many of them are based in those areas and give an option for employment for people in areas where it would not have been at all possible in the past. Therefore, delivery, accountability, setting challenges and holding to account are hugely important. I know that the Government are aiming at 100%, but it is often said that the aim is 95% or 99%. Often I wonder whether that refers to numbers of people or the areas covered. If it is on numbers of people, obviously it is easier in urban areas than in very rural areas.

I have tabled one or two amendments to the Bill that we will come to later. I support and welcome it, but there are areas which we need to strengthen, and I am glad to have spoken to my two amendments along with the other amendments that have been moved and spoken to already.

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[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, I just want to raise an issue of the future rather than the present. I hope that masts will soon be a thing of the past and we move to satellite provision of telephony in the very near future. I do not know whether that will be the case, but I have certainly heard it will be. Otherwise, I agree with my noble friends that we ought to be moving to having the best provider we can get in any area. I am with EE, and when I am sitting in my motor car driving along with my wife, who is on O2, and my son, who is with Virgin Media, who gets a service on their phone in some areas of the country will depend on the provider.

[Baroness Byford]

My Lords, as someone who is not as well versed as some noble Lords with the technology, it always strikes me as strange that if you go abroad, wherever you are, you seem to be able to get access. What do they do that we do not? Are there lessons that we should be learning? Do they have a different system? How does it actually work? It seems ludicrous that we are going into such nitty-gritty when perhaps, over there, there is something that we are not even opening our minds to.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions in this interesting and important debate. Amendment 6, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, seeks to include mobile coverage within the scope of the guidance on the broadband universal service obligation. The universal service directive currently provides the regulatory framework for a broadband USO and although, depending on the design of a broadband USO, there is scope for the USO connection to be provided using mobile technology such as 4G, the directive does not apply to mobile coverage.

I am afraid we do not currently consider there is a case for a USO for mobile. The Government have already secured significant progress to ensure mobile coverage across the whole of the UK through the licence obligations arising from the December 2014 agreement with the mobile network operators, which locked in £5 billion of investment to support the rollout plans. We want to hold the mobile operators’ feet to the fire, and noble Lords will be aware that Clause 10 will give the regulator, Ofcom, the power to issue hefty fines to mobile phone companies that fail to meet their licence obligations. The noble Lord, Lord Gordon, mentioned that it does not help if you are not getting a full mobile service, but it is a direct incentive, as is compensation. We are trying to achieve what he wants.

Amendment 19, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, seeks a licence variation to require roaming within networks where there is an intermittent or no signal, while Amendment 17 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, would offer roaming as automatic compensation. I understand the frustrations of people whose mobile experience does not live up to their expectations, but although roaming appears to offer a quick fix, it would do more harm than good, undermining the incentive for operators to invest in new infrastructure. This is particularly important for areas that have no coverage from any provider at all, as there is no incentive to invest capital in a new mast if other operators simply piggy-back off your investment.

Noble Lords mentioned coverage in other countries— my noble friend Lady Byford mentioned travel abroad. The reason for that is there are international roaming agreements, which apply to a UK citizen travelling in Europe. However, it is offered on a fair-use basis, when tourists travel for a limited period of time. Details of a fair-use test to prevent abuse of roaming are being agreed in the EU at the moment.

Roaming was considered by the Government in 2014, but was rejected in favour of licence obligations to drive increased coverage by all mobile operators, which locked in the £5 billion investment I mentioned earlier. We are making progress: Ofcom’s Connected Nations 2016 report, which records progress to June 2016, shows that 99% of UK premises now have indoor voice coverage and 98% have indoor 3G or 4G data coverage. Our recent reforms to mobile planning laws in England, and the proposed reforms of the Electronic Communications Code which we will be talking about later, will support further investment and improvements in connectivity across the UK and reduce coverage not-spots. We are working to make it easier and cheaper for mobile companies to invest so that consumers benefit from good coverage and can receive it at low prices. Our measures are achieving this, and our future reforms will support this further, thereby delivering a better deal for consumers across the UK.

Noble Lords will also be aware of our commitment to being world leaders in 5G, as the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, suggested. That is why we announced over £1 billion of funding in the Autumn Statement to support the deployment of the next generation of digital infrastructure. We want to support investment, and not discourage it. The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, talked about his desire to see no masts at all and for the system to be based on satellites. I am not an expert on the technical side of this, but I think I am right in saying that for 5G, which is what we are aiming for, we are going to see more masts, I am afraid, or more transmitters attached to various edifices—we will talk about that later, I am sure—because they have shorter range and greater bandwidth. So I am afraid I do not think the bandwidth that is possible from satellites will enable what we have all talked about and what is required for the future.

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[Lord Mitchell]

My Lords, I will address Amendment 20. The separation of Openreach from BT is fundamental to the success of Britain being a leader in the digital economy in the 21st century. It is unanswerable that BT has been given a monopoly in fixed broadband connectivity. It displays classic monopoly behaviour: it controls the distribution, sets the prices and dictates the terms to its competitors. It has no incentive to improve the quality of its service—just the minimum. I would not be so vehement on this issue if BT was supplying a brilliant service, or even if it gave us believable market facts. Its broadband coverage is awful and it successfully lobbies to persuade Ministers and others that it is meeting its targets; it is not. It is undeserving of any government support, particularly in its ownership of Openreach. Why should it be granted this monopolistic licence to print money? Alternative owners will have a real incentive to improve the service.

Fixed and mobile connectivity are converging. The route may be different, but they are joining up: data are data. BT is rapidly taking on all the attributes of the overall monopoly supplier: all internet connectivity. If you aggregate its stranglehold in broadband, add its ownership of EE in mobile and then factor in its future 42% ownership of the 5G spectrum, it is overwhelming. We have a massive monopoly in the making. Separating Openreach will certainly clip BT’s wings and improve broadband connectivity.

[Baroness Byford]

My Lords, at Second Reading I spoke against the continuation of BT and Openreach as one unit. Many of us have experienced disappointing results when we have asked BT and Openreach to do things: the two of them seem to pass the buck to each other. Separation is a very good suggestion and I support Amendment 20 in principle. If this is not possible —like others, I have followed the current pension debacle, which is adding to the difficulty—who holds BT to account? If it is Ofcom, is it doing its job; if not, should somebody else be doing it? One does not often hear praise of BT, and its provision is unsatisfactory. If the Government say that the amendment is not necessary, the Minister should tell the Committee what he is going to do about the current position, which is far from satisfactory.

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[Baroness Byford]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group. Amendment 25 suggests leaving out paragraph 3(h) of Schedule 1:

“to interfere with or obstruct a means of access to or from the land (whether or not any electronic communications apparatus is on, under or over the land)”.

As I declared earlier, at the moment we have no such masts on any of our land.

This is a probing amendment intended to ascertain what is meant here. How can it be reasonable, necessary or practicable to interfere with or obstruct access to land—any land as it currently stands, as is stated in the preamble—even when there is no apparatus on, under or over that land? Will this, as the noble Lord suggested, include children’s play areas? Will private citizens return home to find they cannot access their property because there is an unmoving Openreach van across their drive? Will farm animals be denied welfare services because they cannot be removed from their fields? Will emergency services, including air ambulances, be barred from using land where access has been obstructed? Will any obstruction be time limited to, for example, not more than half an hour? Indeed, have the Government given thought to this particular issue?

Amendment 39 deals with the height and clearance requirements of overhead lines. I am not sure why Amendment 40 has been removed from this group but I will speak to it at the same time, if I may. These are probing amendments, though the alternative heights they suggest are not to be regarded as frivolous. Three metres is only 10 feet. Modern agricultural machinery is large and growing larger. Three metres above the ground is likely to mean that combining a cereal crop will be difficult, more costly than strictly necessary and probably more dangerous. Have the Government consulted, for example, the NFU, the Health and Safety Executive and the CLA; and if so, what were their comments?

Two metres is only 6.5 feet. Wires hung in mid-air tend to stretch over time. It is likely that 2 metres will become, in places, 1.6 or 1.7 metres—less than the height of the average man. How will roof repairs, chimney repointing and the installation of solar panels be carried out safely with a wire at head height? Ladders and other apparatus will have to be positioned and lifted over the roof ridge. Who will carry the can and bear the cost if a wire set at 2 metres has lengthened and is damaged? Who will be held responsible if a wire moves suddenly and sharply in a gust of wind and hurts or kills somebody working on the roof? I believe that the height envisaged in this section of the code is from a time when agricultural machinery was much smaller and we did not, of course, have the whole question of electronic communications as we do now. As I said, this is a probing amendment. However, if we are not careful, this section of the code has the possibility to cause difficulty in the future.

[Lord Aberdare]

My Lords, the issues relating to valuation seem to span this and the next group. In a sense, we have not yet examined the horse to which Amendment 23 is the cart. However, I will follow the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, in covering the area as a whole.

The no-scheme valuation methodology proposed in the Bill is designed to promote greater investment in the development of much-needed communications infrastructure. In doing so, it needs to maintain a fair and workable balance between the range of different interests involved, including that of landowners, infrastructure providers, network operators and, of course, users. Briefings from the CLA, representing landowners, and from APWireless, a land aggregator, argue that this is a market that already works well and has done so for 30 years. They express serious concern that the proposed change could in fact reduce the availability of land for wireless infrastructure development, thereby slowing the rollout of extra capacity. They point out that the Law Commission report on the ECC some years ago, which the noble Lord mentioned, warned that changes along the lines proposed in the Bill would,

“generate an extremely difficult transition, and a consequent overload of litigation; more importantly, the market in sites benefits the economy—not only small businesses in the countryside but also some larger concerns”.

A subsequent report by Nordicity made similar statements.

I am not aware of any evidence that so-called ransom rents are a significant issue under the existing regime. Independent infrastructure providers, such as VVIG and Arqiva, see it as essential that these new powers are used responsibly and only as a measure of last resort. They stress the importance of seeking voluntary agreements first, to retain the support of the landowner community. The undertakings given in the Minister’s helpful letter to Peers after Second Reading, relating to wholesale infrastructure providers and to the treatment of alternative structures such as water towers and pylons, are encouraging in this respect.

A possible effect of the proposed change to a no-scheme valuation may be to generate windfall savings for large mobile network operators whose costs of acquiring access to land will fall. For that reason I support Amendment 23, which seeks to ensure that such savings are at least reinvested in increasing coverage, rather than just disappearing into the coffers of the MNOs. However, I remain concerned that the change, particularly if applied to existing agreements or their renewal, could introduce uncertainty, risk and tension between ECC beneficiaries and landlords—and of course landlord co-operation and good will is key to a sustainable, efficient and well-maintained network. It also seems to represent a fundamental change in the rules surrounding private ownership in this country.

I hope the Minister will be able to explain why this proposed new valuation methodology was introduced into the Bill so apparently unexpectedly, as the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, said, and contrary to what had previously seemed to be the Government’s intention. What provisions does the Minister have in mind to ensure that any savings made on rents are indeed reinvested in communications infrastructure? I apologise if I have jumped the gun in talking about some of the amendments in the next group.

Digital Economy Bill

Baroness Byford Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, who so clearly demonstrated the importance of pushing ahead with digital entrepreneurism, if I can put it that way. I will comment on three aspects of the Bill. As other noble Lords have said, the Bill is very broad. I shall comment on broadband, Part 3 on pornography, where I shall take up one or two comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and the slightly different area of data protection, which one or two noble Lords have spoken about. I remind noble Lords of my family farming interests, although with regard to this Bill I do not think we have anything to declare.

As the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, has just said, broadband is absolutely key and its success or lack of it has great implications for many people’s lives. Noble Lords will be aware that I have for many years raised this issue with regard to rural areas. We talk about gigabytes but there are still some areas of the country where there is no coverage at all, which is absolutely appalling, and some areas where the connection is very slow, and therefore the service cannot be used in the way that people in London and other areas can use it. Providing many of these rural areas with broadband access would enable them to diversify and create new businesses, which at the moment they cannot do. So for many people, companies and organisations, the whole question of broadband is one of complaints, arguments, disappointment and charges to do with its coverage, speed, maintenance and cost. I have spoken often about that in this House.

Coverage by broadband services is far from universal, in that there are many tracts of the UK where it is simply not available. There are also many places where it exists but the speeds are too slow, making it an impractical tool for many who want to create businesses, or even fill in government forms.

I would be grateful if the Minister would explain the application of the universal service obligation. The Explanatory Notes cite the telephony obligation whereby any customer can request a service but they will have to pay the extra if it costs more than £3,400 to provide. What is the base cost for broadband? What parts of the country will cost more than that: for example, ground above X metres, or buildings more than Y kilometres from a given point? As the population expands, is there a danger that the location of their dwellings will be dictated by the practicality and the cost of broadband installation?

Connection to broadband is at the moment a serious cause of anxiety, cost and time waste for many people. Consider the work/life balance of the farmer who travels many miles to fill in government forms, which is now required, to claim his entitlement to the single farm payment or to report the many statistics demanded of him. Think of the families required to manage all school contact using a two megabits per second service. Rural children are already handicapped by the length of their journeys to and from school, especially where rural bus services have been reduced. Surely they should not lose out on sleep because it takes so long to download and return homework.

This does not happen just in rural areas. I will give an example with which I am directly involved as a past Master of the Worshipful Company of Farmers. We and the Fletchers have a hall in the City of London. In September 2015 we quickly realised that the simple broadband service and wi-fi we had installed in the hall was just not adequate. We duly ordered a fibre-optic cable-based system through Onecom, a respected supplier, which would give us an uncontested 20 to 100 megabits per second service. The order was placed by email on 25 November 2015, and contract documents were signed on behalf of the hall the following day. Onecom has been helpful, but its—and our—problem is that Openreach has the monopoly on installing the cabling. It has been totally inefficient and seems to stumble from one problem to another. No one person in Openreach can be identified with the ownership of the case, and we have endured a long saga of engineers calling, being unable to resolve the issue, and disappearing again. That was a year ago, and this is London. Finally, we have been told that the connection is installed and we have been sent a wi-fi router, which we are to plug in, and away we go. As I understand from the secretary, the snag is that they cannot locate the socket that Openreach says it has installed.

The noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, said that he would advocate the splitting up of BT and Openreach. While that may not be popular with others, I, too, share his view on that case. Too much gets shifted from BT to Openreach and back again, and a clear definition of who takes what responsibility would be a huge improvement.

There is another problem, of which I cannot recall hearing any other noble Lord speak. If you cannot pay your bills, you will be taken to court by the council, cut off by the electricity provider and possibly visited by the bailiffs. What do the Government intend should happen to someone who cannot sustain a credit rating and is refused broadband installation? How will the broadband provider be entitled to deal with the customer who cannot pay a bill? I cannot find the answer in the briefings we have had.

Before I move on to Part 3 I will reiterate what other noble Lords have said about the unacceptable level of mobile reception throughout the country. In some areas you can get it, in others you cannot. It is absolutely hopeless when we can get it very much more regularly and easily when we are abroad.

On Part 3 and the Government’s intentions to look at online pornography, clearly there are those who enjoy access to pornography, just as there are those who enjoy taking drugs or smoking. In all three cases the problem is not only the enjoyment but the urge to involve others, particularly those under the age of consent. I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, clearly said. I will not repeat what she said, but this is a huge problem. I would love to see pornography banned altogether, but that is an impossibility. However, we certainly need to make sure that it is controlled in an acceptable manner.

Finally, I will say a few words on confidentiality and personal data. Paragraph 33 on page 11 of the Explanatory Notes states that,

“the Bill will enable access to civil registration data like births, deaths and marriages so that public authorities do not send letters to people who are deceased”.

Having lost my husband three years ago, I very much appreciate any move to stop that from happening. I feel that if this is the level of justification employed by the Government, we should look more closely at both the mania for sharing data and the implications it has for trespass upon privacy.

There is a difference between improving a public service and selection, often by a computer, of individuals deemed to be in need of that service. I am particularly concerned that access to sensitive data is to be extended from those who have always been at the forefront of welfare provision to those whose concern for their own welfare, otherwise known as profit, has been notable. For example, who is to decide that my home is hard to heat? Who is to decree that my income is below some limit that renders it acceptable? Even if they are right, why should that information be passed to service providers whose discretion and public spiritedness is often the butt of ridicule? Freedom of information requests to Ofgem resulted last week in the publication of preliminary figures concerning the amount of money taken from customers’ accounts and held by suppliers. The sum quoted on the radio was billions of pounds.

The Data Protection Act is often quoted and I have no reason to doubt that many organisations abide by its provisions. However, when private data are divulged, how are we to find the person or organisation responsible if HMRC data are to be made available to persons unknown? In this country, personal taxation has been private and this Bill does not set limits. Will the data consist of the names, national insurance numbers and addresses of those who earn less than the tax threshold, or will there be much more detail? Page 74 of the Explanatory Notes lists the Secretaries of State for justice, education, transport, international development and culture, as well as the Duchy of Lancaster, as recipients. Does the digital economy require all this information to be disclosed, and, if so, why? If the Minister cannot answer my questions tonight, I would be grateful if he would do so in due course.

So although I welcome the Bill, I, like other noble Lords, have some questions about its implications. The digital age is opening up new opportunities, most importantly to increase education and learning. There is a whole range of possibilities with new jobs. One or two speakers have said that the Bill lacks ambition, but we need to back it because we really must move forward—and quickly.

Digital Economy Bill

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 2nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the wise words of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I also want to pay tribute to the work that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and my noble friend Lady Benjamin have done on this area. I well remember my noble friend Lady Benjamin almost doorstepping the former Prime Minister David Cameron to get something done on this area. He agreed that action would be taken.

I spoke on this at Second Reading—not in any technical way because I am not a particularly technical person; I spoke as a head teacher of 20-odd years on the harm that pornography potentially does, and is doing, to young people. We are rightly always concerned about the safeguarding of children and young people. We put in place all sorts of safeguarding procedures, yet we seem to find all sorts of reasons why we cannot do anything about pornography. Many young lives, frankly, are being corrupted in the pure innocence of childhood as they follow an older brother or sister, a friend or a mate, who might say, “Oh, have a look at this”. Once they get involved in this, it does immeasurable harm, not only to the child but to their view of women, for example.

A young child of 12 or 13 on the internet, perhaps by accident, perhaps by a dare, perhaps encouraged by another person, watching female rape enacted—this is not something I want to be part of. I do not want a society that allows that to happen. It is important, and my noble friend Lord Paddick is right to say, that we should be effective in what we do. He also said that if children are determined they can access this, no matter what we put in place, but that is not a reason not to do something. The vast majority of children will do something. If somebody is determined to do something, they will always be able to do it. I hope that will not be a reason not to do something. I am relaxed about our having a look at this to get it right. I know it whizzed through the Commons, but even at this late stage I am relaxed about making sure that every “i” is dotted and every “t” is crossed in the interests of young people.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I spoke at Second Reading on this aspect of the Bill. I was one of the people who said very clearly that I should much prefer not to have pornography of any sort on any website, because the world would be much better without it. The previous speaker is quite right. The influence that modern communication has on young people is devastating. In some families, it really has been disruptive and led to unfortunate consequences within them.

I welcome the Minister’s statement that they will take this away, think about it and come back again. I reiterate my dismay that again we have another very important Bill from the Commons that really has not been dealt with in the proper manner. I hope that in future the Commons will be allowed more time or will organise itself so that it can do the job it should and can do, and not leave it to this House to be the one saying, “Hang on”.

If you look at the number of amendments tabled to this one Bill, it reinforces the whole position that my noble friend the Minister must deal with, which in many cases should have been dealt with before. I am an old hand here and still feel strongly about this. I do not complain that my right honourable friends at the other end have not had the opportunity to do this—that is how the system works. However, we go on, year after year, saying the same thing and it is high time we got to grips with this. I would like to push a little further on the Minister’s response earlier that the Government will look at this: it is hugely important that they do.

I have slight concerns about Ofcom being perhaps one of those who should undertake this. In some ways, Ofcom is not always as robust as I would like it to be, which is perhaps unfair. Secondly, we certainly need to identify in the Bill before it leaves our House exactly what is to happen: who the enforcer is where there are dual splits within what we seek to do in the Bill. The Bill is hugely important and I hope that the Government will, as they have already indicated, take it away after Committee and think seriously about it. I would hate to think that some of the final detail will come through in secondary legislation, which we cannot alter. We need to get this into primary legislation. I support the comments made by other noble Lords and look forward to the Minister responding and, I hope, being able to take it away and come back, even if that means it happens a little later. It is much better to get it right later than to leave it in its current form.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, I will make some brief points. First, on this set of amendments I am afraid I disagree with the noble Baroness: we must get on with this. It will not be perfect on day one but the sooner we get moving the better. We have talked about this for a very long time. That is why I am not really pro these amendments.

On Amendment 55, I agree entirely with my noble friend Lady Howe. She is absolutely right to spot this lacuna: the BBFC will look at this stuff and age verification, but who will enforce it? That is a problem and I was going to raise it later anyway. She was absolutely spot on there. My noble friend Lady Kidron was also absolutely spot on about these sites. Twitter could be classified as commercial because it takes money from pornography sites to promote them. I can get evidence of that. It would be difficult for it to say that it does not promote them.

Very quickly on what the Minister said, I was going to raise under the group starting with Amendment 57 the issue of including prohibited material with the age verification stuff. We should separate protecting children from protecting adults or it will confuse things. The big danger is that if we start using this to protect adults from stuff that they should not see—in other words, some of the adult prohibited material, of which there is quite a lot out there—we run the risk of challenges in court. Everything that the BBFC does not classify because it falls into certain categories is automatically prohibited material. It is not allowed to classify certain acts. I should probably not tell noble Lords about those now as they are pretty unpleasant but they are fairly prevalent in the hardcore pornography out there. If the pornography sites are blocked from supplying adults with what they want, they will just move offshore and get round this. If they do that, there will be no point in doing age verification and we will not protect our children. That will create the first major loophole in the entire thing.

I have this from the pornographers themselves. They know what they are doing. However, they are very happy—and would like—to protect children. If we leave them alone and argue through the Obscene Publications Act and other such things as to what they must stop adults seeing, they will help block children. They are very keen on that. Children just waste their time as they do not have money to spend. At the end of the day, the pornographers want to extract money from people.

I am advised that the real problem is that prohibited material includes content that would be refused a BBFC R18 certificate. The Crown Prosecution Service charging practice is apparently out of sync with recent obscenity case law in the courts. Most non-UK producers and distributors work on common global compliance standards based on Visa and Mastercard’s brand-protection guidelines. Maybe we should start to align with that. We should deal with that separately under the Obscene Publications Act. It will be very easy for the BBFC, the regulator or the enforcer to tell what does not have age verification on the front. That is yes/no—it is very simple. The trouble is that if we get into prohibited material, it will end up before the courts. We will have to go through court procedures and it will take much longer to block the sites. I would remove that from here. I shall leave my other comments to a later stage.

Digital Economy Bill

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 85, which is linked with this group. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for his introduction. I believe in data sharing; I declare that straightaway. However, it needs to be well managed, because, as the noble Baroness has just stressed, we do not want information to be used in a way that is, unfortunately, not fair to some of the very vulnerable families of which she has spoken.

Although the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, deals with Clause 30, my amendment relates to Clause 33. I have asked that Clause 33(2)(c) to (f) be deleted, if only to give me an opportunity to express my concerns about this aspect of the Bill. In these two clauses, we are talking about information being disclosed by gas and electricity companies and information being given by other authorities to gas and electricity suppliers. That is why one or two of my thoughts went searching as to why they would be in this group.

My amendment is very much a probing amendment and seeks clarification. The Explanatory Notes state that these paragraphs are included to enable personal information to be used in,

“criminal investigations, civil or criminal legal proceedings or the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of antisocial behaviour”.

My amendment refers particularly to subsection 2(c) in that group. Will the Minister explain in what way the gas and electricity suppliers will be involved in such activities other than reporting persons and their behaviour to the police? I do not quite see what responsibility the gas or electricity suppliers have with this part of the Bill in that context.

I also confess considerable alarm at the prospect of power suppliers having access to very personal and private information to enable them, as I understand it, to investigate, detect, prevent or prosecute anything outside the realm of their normal expertise. Surely, their original expertise was the supply, maintenance and, where necessary, repair of power lines and pipes, but in this part of the Bill it seems to go very wide. I shall speak to other amendments later, so I will not go on at great length at this stage, but this part of the Bill raises questions for me. I can see some of the advantages of data sharing, but how do we define antisocial behaviour and what does that have to do with gas and electricity boards? I may be wrong; I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

On that basis, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment. I say very fully that these are well-intentioned amendments because we understand what lies behind them and why the probing amendments in this group have been tabled.

[Baroness Byford]

I specifically asked why the responsibility has been placed on gas and electricity suppliers to have regard to some of the things stated in the Bill, and I would be grateful for an answer. I do not mind if the answer is not given now, but if that could be clarified I would be grateful.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am perfectly prepared to write to my noble friend to clarify that point, and I will place a copy of any letter in the Library.

Digital Economy Bill

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 6th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke]

My Lords, our amendments in this group add safeguards. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, referred to some of these: that sharing of information be minimal; that the authorised conduct be proportionate to the object of the exercise; that a privacy impact assessment be conducted; and that proposed measures be subject to public consultation.

In addition, we support the amendments advocated by the BMA. Amendment 89 would remove the subsection through which sharers of information are not bound by the principle of confidentiality. Amendment 93 is a further safeguard preventing an authorised sharer of information from disclosing identifiable health information. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, in this group I tabled Amendments 100 and 196. Within this group we are debating data sharing and the putting in place of safeguards that make us confident in the next move to make life better for the majority of people. I have one or two direct questions, particularly on the level of data that will be supplied from one authority to another. For example, does the Bill intend that information be supplied on the number of households in a given postal area where child benefit is being claimed and/or where all adults are unemployed? Would it be up to the users of the data to extract a summary picture from details of, for example, names, addresses, whether benefits are received, whether householders are unemployed or any other data?

At any level of inquiry, I presume data will be transferred such as dates of birth and marital status that, were they to fall into the wrong hands, could be used to perpetrate private fraud. No one today has mentioned private fraud, but it can come about as a result of lack of security and safeguarding. Again, perhaps the Minister will indicate what relevant provisions there are. I am unsure whether I have missed some. At earlier stages of the Bill I mentioned the amount of fraud going on and it is horrifying. If the Bill can in any way tighten up on that, it would be an advantage.

For example, will personal information cover things such as whether an individual has a diagnosis of dementia or whether a family has been a cause of concern to the social work department in their own area? Who makes these judgments? At what stage are these activated? I may not have read the Bill carefully enough to find the missing answers. I pose these fairly simple questions to make sure that our safeguarding of this information is secure.

Amendment 100 is a probing amendment that seeks to complete the explanation of what information HMRC would disclose, providing examples of the circumstances under which it would be disclosed and a complete list of the groups or persons whose information would be handed over. This relates to Clause 30, of which we spoke earlier. Subsections (9) and (10) specify the well-being of persons or households and define well-being in terms of physical or mental health, contributions to society—which we have covered slightly earlier on and which is difficult; I should be glad of clarification on that—and emotional, social and economic well-being. The latter are easier to understand.

Clause 31 refers to people living in fuel poverty. Again, we debated this previously. Fuel poverty has been defined as,

“living on a lower income in a home which cannot be kept warm at a reasonable cost”.

Clause 32 also refers to people living in fuel poverty. I do not understand what is intended, nor what will be involved for those deemed to be affected. Defining well-being in terms of well-being suggests that definitions of those covered by this legislation could depend on the personal and political stance of those making those decisions. What is “lower income”? Within what limits do homes qualify under these clauses and who will rule that they cannot be kept warm at reasonable cost? What will be the limits of powers of such a decision-maker over, for example, someone who prefers to wrap up for three months of the year so they may enjoy their garden for nine; in other words, somebody who is living in a bigger house that costs more to heat? Will an individual be able to opt not to have personal information shared within local authorities and/or with gas and electricity suppliers?

Turning now to my Amendment 196 in this group, I do not pretend to know anything about the structure, organisation or responsibilities of HMRC. Hence, I do not understand whether an “official” is someone equivalent, say, to a board member in a quoted company. I fear, however, that that is unlikely to be the case. In this era of Facebook, Snapchat and the substitution of public opinion for demonstrable fact, I am unhappy—I do not know whether other noble Lords are—that perhaps a more junior member of HMRC could decide that disclosure would be in the public interest. In other words, where does the buck stop?

Disclosure of personal information, even supposedly non-identifying, should be done only on the authority of the head of the organisation. He or she presumably will have the knowledge, experience and breadth of understanding to be sure that it cannot be combined with other data to name individuals. He or she will also, presumably, be less likely to make errors of judgment, and of course a claim of ignorance of any such disclosure would not stand up to scrutiny, as they would obviously be at the most senior level.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I will just pick up the noble Baroness’s last point about who is an official. There are examples, in other legislation, of references to “senior officials” and “designated officials”, which might be somewhere between the junior official she has in mind and the Permanent Secretary, but she is right to draw the issue to the Committee’s attention.

On an earlier group, the noble and learned Lord indicated that he was going to speak at greater length—I assume that may be on this group—on the reason for using the term “personal information” rather than “data”. Perhaps I may use my noble friend’s Amendment 213 to ensure that we get to share more of Government’s thinking. I understand the point about corporations, since in the one case, they come within the group covered, and in the other they do not. But I am still puzzled as to why such efforts have had to be made to deal with personal information and then to add in references to the Data Protection Act, rather than starting from the DPA—with any necessary exclusions—which would have taken us straight to the involvement of the Information Commissioner, the data protection principles and so on.

I wondered during the Statement whether to have a go at some alternative drafting for Report, but thought I had better wait for this discussion. But perhaps part of it boils down to a question on Clause 33(8), which says, in wording replicated elsewhere, that,

“nothing in section 30, 31 or 32 authorises … a disclosure which … contravenes the Data Protection Act”.

To look at it from the other end of that telescope, is there any personal information which is the subject of the Bill that would not fall within the DPA and therefore not be protected by that clause?

Digital Economy Bill

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 6th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, my opposition to Clause 39 standing part of the Bill forms part of this group. I have listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has just said. I come to this from a slightly different angle but the conversation goes round and round in a circle, and here we are trying to introduce protections again.

I tabled my opposition to the clause for probing reasons. I wonder whether it is possible to have examples of when and why a civil registration authority would disclose information. The definition in new Section 19AA(6)(e), introduced in Clause 39, lists as civil registration officials those local authority classifications which also appear as specified public authorities. Do the disclosure powers mean therefore that a civil registration official in, for example, my home county of Leicestershire may disclose information to other personnel employed within the county council, or do they empower him to disclose information to any or all of the other specified public authorities? From my reading of the subsection, that is not quite clear.

Would the regulations be used to divulge information specific to a person or perhaps a family, or could they ever cover everything registered at a particular time or relating to a particular location? For example, why would the NHS have an interest in receiving such information?

Could this chapter result in a large-scale information exchange between civil registration officials and public authorities using the internet? If so, how will such data be protected both in transit and at the receiving end? Do all public authorities use the same methods to guard against data theft and hacking? I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask a couple of questions which arise from the fact sheet on this issue. On civil registration, it says:

“The Bill establishes a framework, with appropriate safeguards, to share bulk registration information where there is a clear and compelling need”.


I wonder whether the Minister can help the Committee in understanding where that is translated into the Bill. The fact sheet also says:

“There are no intentions to share data with the private sector or for data to be used for any commercial purposes”.


It then goes on to say that,

“the powers would not permit this”.

However, I am sure that the Minister will understand my querying the words “no intentions”, because they suggest that there could be a change, and possibly one with which Parliament is not hugely involved. I am going to assume that the points made by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee are in the rather large pile of items that it raised and which the Government will reply to before Report, so I am referring to that only in passing, but it would be very helpful to understand how the points in the fact sheet, which is where many people would start, move over into the legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Byford]

199: Clause 68, page 66, line 16, leave out from beginning to end of line 25 on page 67 and insert—
“(2) Subject to subsection (1) of this section and section 45E, the Board may, by notice in writing to a public authority to which this section applies, require the authority to disclose to the Board information which—(a) is held by the authority in connection with its functions, and(b) is specified, or is of a kind specified, in the notice.(3) A notice under subsection (2) may require information to be disclosed on more than one date specified in the notice within a period specified in the notice.(4) A notice under subsection (2) other than one within subsection (3) must specify the date by which or the period within which the information must be disclosed.(5) A notice under subsection (2) may specify the form or manner in which the information to which it relates must be disclosed.(6) A notice under subsection (2) may require the public authority to consult the Board before making changes to—(a) its processes for collecting, organising, storing or retrieving the information to which the notice relates, or(b) its processes for supplying such information to the Board.(7) The reference in subsection (6) to making changes to a process includes introducing or removing a process.(8) The Board may give a notice under subsection (2) only if the Board requires the information to which the notice relates to enable it to exercise one or more of its functions.(9) The Board must obtain the consent of the Scottish Ministers before giving a notice under subsection (2) to a public authority which is a Scottish public authority with mixed functions or no reserved functions (within the meaning of the Scotland Act 1998).(10) The Board must obtain the consent of the Welsh Ministers before giving a notice under subsection (2) to a public authority which is a Wales public authority as defined by section 157A of the Government of Wales Act 2006.(11) The Board must obtain the consent of the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland before giving a notice under subsection (2) to a public authority if—(a) the public authority exercises functions only as regards Northern Ireland, and(b) its functions are wholly or mainly functions which relate to transferred matters (within the meaning of the Northern Ireland Act 1998).(12) A public authority to which a notice under subsection (2) is given must comply with it. (13) But the public authority need not comply with the notice if compliance—(a) might prejudice national security,(b) would contravene the Data Protection Act 1998,(c) would be prohibited by Part 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, or(d) would contravene directly applicable EU legislation or any enactment to the extent that it implements EU legislation.”

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to move the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Willetts, who apologises that he could not be here tonight. I have the two other amendments in the same group. Clause 68 makes mandatory the provision of data by Crown bodies to the ONS for defined statistical research purposes. An alternative approach might be for an organisation such as the Information Commissioner’s Office to provide arbitration on contentious requests.

Clear insight into whether the Bill directs Crown bodies to share data from statistics is needed in Clause 68. At the Bill’s Committee stage in the House of Commons, where there was a long discussion on this, Chris Skidmore, Minister for the Constitution in the Cabinet Office, said it would be possible for a Crown body to refuse an ONS request for data and,

“where necessary, have their refusal put before Parliament”.—[Official Report, Commons, Digital Economy Public Bill Committee, 27/10/16; col. 379.]

The Royal Statistical Society’s primary objection to this is that it provides no subsequent mechanism for the ONS to secure access to the data. It is also unclear to it what the process means in practice, which part of the legislature will deal with that correspondence, what it is expected to do with it and what sanctions it can apply for non-disclosure. The RSS has been asking why this is in place and whether it is justified, especially as other countries, such as Canada, operate with less burdensome arrangements. I should say that I am very grateful to the Royal Statistical Society for its briefing, otherwise I would be really lost. The RSS says:

“Including the Minister’s contribution, we have heard two arguments thus far … The Minister explained the different treatments for Crown bodies and other public authorities as being due to conventions: ‘That way of working, set out in sections 45B and 45C, ensures consistency between how a Crown body interacts with another on the one hand, and how a Crown body interacts with a non-Crown body on the other’ … We have also been privy to a different, earlier argument that due to the indivisibility of the Crown, one Crown body cannot give directions to another”.


If we thought earlier discussions were difficult, I think it is getting even more so.

The briefing continues by saying that,

“we have sought and obtained legal advice, which suggests that Parliament could technically direct departments to do what it deems fit. The government’s position, although it is not unprecedented, appears politically or culturally based. It may be that the government has heard objections from some departments to a mandatory approach. We are aware that there could be reluctance on the part of some departments to share data generally, and with ONS and researchers in particular. However, problems of risk aversion to data sharing ought to be addressed without obstructing the proposed right for ONS to access data for statistical purposes, which has been more widely supported and called for, for example, by the Public Administration Select Committee (2013) and the Science and Technology Select Committee (2016), and in other reports described in the House of Commons Library’s analysis”.

There is much more material here but I shall not push the matter further. I hope I have given my noble friend enough to respond to.

My Amendments 208 and 209, which are linked to this, are much simpler and more direct as far as I am concerned, because I am not technically astute on the other topic. Large, well-known charities employ many people using many skills and who are occupied full-time in their jobs. Little charities rely on unpaid volunteers who may not have a wide range of skills and who use their free time to work purely for the charity. I have two examples in mind. The first is Freddie’s Wish, which commemorates a little boy who died in a car crash. His mother set up the charity to help local bereaved families and to raise money for the children’s hospital and the air ambulance. In two years it has raised over £50,000 and trained more than 100 volunteers in paediatric first aid.

The second example is Evelyn’s Gift, which has been a registered charity for less than a year although its founder and volunteers have been working for nearly four years. It is in memory of a seven year-old girl who died of respiratory illness. Its aims are to arrange CPR training and to continue her practice of doing little acts of kindness. The list of acts done in her name and in the name of people and the organisations that support them is inspiring. The charity employs no one and all the work is carried out by unpaid volunteers.

Organisations such as these have no resources to supply the Statistics Board with information. An unpaid voluntary worker would have to give time to filling in forms instead of doing the work he or she has signed up for and dearly wishes to do. It could be difficult to persuade anyone to donate even more time in this pursuit. A small charity with irregular income but making an important local contribution could well be destroyed by a fine levied under new Section 45F(3).

Most people nowadays have heard of charitable shoe boxes. These are sent, filled with practical gifts—hand-knitted hats, scarves and gloves, pens and paper, recycled soft toys, tennis balls and so on—to underprivileged children in Africa and eastern Europe, and, indeed, in our own country. Those who fill them spend their own money and devote much time to making up these boxes. The work is carried out throughout the year and each box going abroad to Africa costs at least £2.50 to transport in November and December. Villages, primary schools, care homes and religious groups donate goods, money, time and effort to reclaiming, recycling and packing huge quantities of otherwise unwanted items. They also raise funds for basic toiletries, small packs of sweets and things such as pens and paper, without which some children cannot go to school. I know of one village that last year sent 1,326 boxes to the central depot.

Who is to fill in the forms for the Statistics Board, and is that really necessary for these very small charities? The boxes come from all over the country. They must not contain liquids, chocolate or sweets dated for expiry before the end of March of the following year. Beyond this, there is no record of contents, value or hours worked. With such charities, my concern is that the figures available to the Statistics Board will be solely to do with the transport of the finished items. That would surely distort the results of any study by the board. I suggest that we should therefore exempt such charities from the Bill. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Ullswater) (Con)]

I must advise your Lordships that, if this amendment is agreed to, I will not be able to call Amendments 200 to 202 because of pre-emption.

--- Later in debate ---

One point that I would note is that Section 33 of the 2015 Act has not yet been commenced. We are exploring transitional arrangements to address this, and intend to return to this matter on Report. However, in the present circumstances, I invite my noble friend to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Byford]

I am very grateful to my noble and learned friend for his response. I am unable to really comment properly on Amendment 199, because I would like my noble friend Lord Willetts to have a chance to read and reflect on the Minister’s response to that issue.

On my own two amendments, I thank him for his comments. One thing that has always troubled me with charities is that sometimes you have a small charity that has a large income, but at the other end you have a large charity with a very small income. I am not totally clear, but I shall read very carefully on whether the lay-down that we have at the moment on micro and small is correct for what I am trying to suggest the Government should think about. However, I thank the Minister for his full response, which I shall read carefully in Hansard. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 199 withdrawn.

Digital Economy Bill

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, this is an important amendment because it touches upon the bigger issue of the impact of artificial intelligence on all sorts of aspects of our lives. There is a law called Moore’s law, which says that every two years the power of computers doubles. That has been true over the past 20 or 30 years and we should assume that that power will continue to develop. Artificial intelligence in all its impacting forms will be more and more prevalent in our society and more and more potent in the hands of terrorists in the years to come.

We cannot ask Ofcom to solve all the problems in this area, but I would like to know where the ownership of these risks and the rapid changes in our society falls in the eyes of the Government. Perhaps Ofcom has a role in this regard—search engines or whatever—but it is really part of a bigger picture of how we get ahead of the game with the impact of artificial intelligence. We read in the papers about driverless cars appearing on our streets, and in many other areas of life artificial intelligence will impact upon us. Where is this owned in the corridors of government?

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to support my noble friend in his amendment. Algorithms are basically mathematical. The power of computers is used to record, classify, summarise and project actions that indicate what is happening in the world around about us. Algorithms can be applied in particular to social media, which other noble Lords have referred to, and to normal internet usage and browsing. They reach decisions about public interest, about you and about me.

According to a recent radio programme, algorithms are used to make individual decisions in the fields of employment, housing, health, justice, credit and insurance. I had heard that employers are increasingly studying social media to find out more about job applicants. I had not realised that an algorithm, programmed by an engineer, can, for example, take the decision to bin an application. If that is true, that is absolutely unacceptable. It certainly explains why so many jobseekers do not receive a response of any kind. There is a very real danger that a person could also be refused a mortgage or a better interest rate as the result of an algorithmic decision. Even now some companies use algorithms based on phone numbers to decide whether a caller is high or low value. Highs get to speak to a person: lows are left holding on until they hang up. Algorithm designers refuse to answer any questions, I understand, about the data that are used or their application on grounds of commercial confidentiality. There are real concerns that if we continue to allow such liberties, there will be an increasing risk of discrimination—intentional or accidental—against people of certain races, religions or ages. One example of algorithm use cited in the programme was that of differential pricing by Uber.

The EU intends that by July 2018 citizens will have the right to an explanation of decisions affected by the workings of these algorithms, such as the online rejection of a bank loan. I do not feel that we should wait until then, and although my noble friend’s amendment might not be perfect, I am really grateful that he has tabled it today and that we are having this worthwhile debate.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for putting down this amendment. Indeed, this amendment has many good aspects to it, but I will adopt a phrase which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, used the other day, which is, “It doesn’t go nearly far enough”. It really highlights—and I declare an interest as the co-chair of the new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence—some of the issues that this Bill simply does not deal with. This does need huge consideration: all the ethics involved not only with artificial intelligence, but with the internet of things and the great many regulatory issues which spring from the new technologies. Algorithms are a part of it, of course they are, but we need further consideration.

I agree with those who have said that perhaps Ofcom is not necessarily the best regulator for this—I do not know—and it may be that we need to construct a purpose-built regulator for the world of artificial intelligence and the internet of things in ethical terms. I am not quite sure that Ofcom has got the necessary tools in terms of the ethics aspect of it.

I am very much in spirit with the noble Lord and I am delighted that he has raised it, but we are at the very beginning of a really important debate on a lot of these areas. The essence of all this is trust. We had a continuous debate through Part 5 about the government sharing of data. This is about the private sector and its use of a lot of our data and the way it sorts them and places them in the search engines. Trust is the overwhelming issue of our age, and we are not there yet. If we are going to reassure people who want to use these new technologies, we really do need to come up with a proper regulatory system. I do not think that this new clause quite provides it.