Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

3rd reading & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 28th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)]

The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey of Didcot, has withdrawn, so I call the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB) [V]]

My Lords, last night at 8 pm, I lit my candle to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. Yesterday, Jewish leaders asked us to include later, less egregious events that have been committed against other groups—notably, and most recently, Chinese Uighurs. China is a superpower and we are a mid-sized state, but if the measure of a people is its moral standing, the United Kingdom has stood tall in the past and should continue to do so.

I note that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is evaluating whether to press this amendment. I say to the House only that the amendment is modest. It seeks to prevent companies using UK telecommunications infrastructure to facilitate human rights abuses. The consumers of that infrastructure would not want infrastructure delivered to them on the back of human rights abuses. It would also give investors a steer, because they would know that the law is clearly set out, and they could make their choices accordingly. There is little that I would add, other than to say that the people of this country rightly hold their leaders to high standards, and this House should uphold those expectations.

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak at the Third Reading of this Bill. Like other noble Lords, I do not wish to detain the House for long, because it has taken some time to get to this stage.

I want to speak to Amendment 1, but it is worth reminding noble Lords that this Bill is, of course, intended to help the 10 million people in this country living in flats and apartments have the right to ask their landlord to help them get better broadband connectivity. This is a Bill to stop landlords failing to engage with telecoms operators. If we have learned nothing else in the past 10 months, although I am sure that we have learned plenty, broadband and better connectivity overall is now absolutely essential for people to be able to go about their daily lives in this country. As we have been hearing in the Covid-19 Select Committee of this House, the need for strong and reliable digital infrastructure will continue even after the pandemic has receded.

We have heard a very powerful speech by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. I remember him asking me the question this time last year. I will just say this to him: as he set out in his powerful speech, since the Bill was first debated last summer, events have indeed moved on. Although, as the Minister set out in her letter to all noble Lords, the amendment is not in scope, I am pleased to note that he and other noble Lords have recognised that the Minister has worked very hard to see if a way could be found to bring forward an amendment to the Bill that was in scope. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, will accept that the motivation behind his amendment and the passion and knowledge with which he speaks have been recognised and widely accepted, and are already influencing policy. He rightly pointed to the recent statement made by the Foreign Secretary as well as, of course, to the Telecommunications (Security) Bill which is being considered in the other place and will reach us.

I want also to pay tribute to the 5G Supply Chain Diversification Strategy which was published last month. When I was the Secretary of State with responsibility for digital, we made the decision last year about who would be able to work to roll out better connectivity. It was absolutely clear that we must not find ourselves in the situation again of being overly reliant on one supplier; we need to have more suppliers in the chain. I think that the new US Administration will help us through working together to achieve that.

The noble Lord, with his amendment, has compelled the Government to act. He has outlined the fact that there will be another opportunity, next week in the Trade Bill, for the House to consider the very important matters that he and other noble Lords have raised. For the reason that our fellow citizens need better connectivity, and that those who live in flats or apartments must be able to ask their landlords to engage in connectivity issues, this Bill is much needed now on the statute book.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I doubt very much whether the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, could ever possibly watch from the sidelines—but that is an aside.

After an unusually long gap between Report and Third Reading, we are sending the Bill back to the Commons in much better shape than when it arrived. It is still, however, a modest Bill with much to be modest about, to coin a phrase. We on these Benches have never thought that it was adequate in itself to deliver the ambition of one-gigabit-per-second broadband capability by 2025, and of course the goalposts themselves have now been moved by the Government. However, we now have the consultation on changes to the Electronic Communications Code, which is a step forward. I do hope that the Government will see the wisdom of retaining the review mechanism of the code in Clause 3, which the House inserted on Report, which can assess after that what other measures might be needed. We on these Benches will continue to press the Government on their electoral promises.

We also stressed during the passage of the Bill that we would like to see broadband treated as a utility, as with gas, water and electricity, with all the necessary and equivalent rights of entry. The last year could not have demonstrated more graphically the essential nature of good broadband to all our lives, alongside, if not ahead of, all those other utilities. We on these Benches advocate strongly for the universal service obligation to be raised to 25 or 30 megabits per second—that is, superfast levels—which should be treated as the minimum for these rural areas.

That said, I thank the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, together with her Bill team, as ever, for their very good nature. I also thank her for her kind words, good nature and patience with us all throughout the Bill and for her willingness to listen, even if she did not always accept our arguments. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his collaboration and co-operation during the course of the Bill, which showed how we always achieve better results by cross-party working.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for raising some extremely important questions with reference to human rights abuses and modern slavery. His campaigning has clearly changed the Government’s approach and, despite what the Minister has said, it might become even more relevant in the context of the Telecommunications (Security) Bill, which, as we have heard, will come to this House shortly. Of course, the acid test will come next Tuesday on the Trade Bill ping-pong. This is of great significance in terms of the relationship between human rights and trade as a whole. Like him and many other noble Lords, I urge the Government to reconsider their position ahead of that vote.

Lastly, I thank Sarah Pughe in our whips’ office for her valuable help, and my noble friends Lord Fox and Lady Northover, who have contributed so knowledgeably throughout on different aspects of the Bill that they have given me a very easy run when leading on it.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a privilege to make the concluding speech for the Cross Benches on this Bill today. I place on record our thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the Bill team, who have been so ready to engage with our concerns, albeit to limited avail in the end.

It was the late Robin Cook who, as Foreign Secretary, first set out a framework for the UK to have an ethical foreign policy in 1997. Given where the UK is now—debating sanctions only an hour ago against Russia in defence of human rights and democracy, standing up for the rights of people in Hong Kong and shortly to be in the process of discussing the National Security and Investment Bill—I think he would have been pleased with the progress made in the intervening period, not least with our efforts to prevent Chinese commercial enterprises, under the control of that country’s national security laws, from participating in egregious human rights violations and cashing in their profits in this country.

I first spoke to my amendment preventing firms that are a security threat operating our critical national infrastructure on 19 May 2020 in Committee on this Bill. In the intervening eight months and numerous debates, it was never my intention—and I think I speak for all other noble Lords who have led this charge; the noble Lords, Lord Alton, Lord Forsyth and Lord Adonis, joined by the Front-Bench speakers of the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party—to prevent the necessary tools needed to roll out broadband to those who need it. Our concerns were well grounded and have, regrettably, come to pass as more information on the treatment of Chinese Uighurs comes to light.

It is also the co-operation between the House of Lords and the other place, so ably led by my noble friend Lord Alton, on these numerous amendments that has allowed us to help the Government to think through where the balance lies in relation to commerce and complicity in human rights abuses that has helped us reach this place today with our amendments. It is now for the other place to decide where that balance lies. I wish the Bill well.