Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Wednesday 29th June 2022 Lords Chamber

It is the final group in Committee, so where in all this—as my noble friend Lord Fox and I have been asking each time we debate these issues—are the interests of the consumer, especially the rural consumer? How are they being promoted, especially now that market review is only once every five years? That is why we need these reviews in these amendments. We tried in the last Bill to make the Government justify their strategy. Now it is clear that changes to the ECC are not fit for purpose and we will try again to make the Government come clean on their strategy.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, before I comment on this group, I have it on good authority that tomorrow is my noble friend the Minister’s birthday, so allow me to be the first to wish him a very happy day. I hope that his evening tomorrow is more enjoyable than this evening.

I want to focus my comments on Amendments 45 and 50. Amendment 45 would, as we have already heard, require the economic impact assessment to be carried out. I understand that it was promised by Ministers in 2017, although I know that my noble friend disputes this, or, rather, has a slight variation on what was promised. Amendment 50 would require reporting by the mobile network operators to achieve much-needed transparency.

By the time I went to add my name to Amendment 50, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, it was already fully subscribed, but I will happily add my name to it if he brings it back on Report. As my noble friend the Minister may recall from Second Reading, my concern on behalf of site owners is that they were told that a reduction in rental income would be reinvested by the mobile network operators in delivering the rollout. It seems that there remains a lack of confidence on the part of the site owners—we have heard of this already tonight—because they have insufficient evidence to demonstrate how the new code is working. They are expected to engage in negotiations with commercial entities on trust, while fearing that their loss is someone else’s financial gain. Amendment 50 seems the least the Government could agree to when faced with that situation.

I was torn regarding Amendment 45, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, on the economic impact assessment, because I am concerned that carrying out a full economic impact assessment could delay rollout. However, I also know that not doing so is fuelling that distrust and sense of unfairness on the part of the site owners. As we have already heard today, the benefit of rollout relies on the willingness of site owners to participate. When we rely on people to succeed, they deserve to be heard and listened to.

My noble friend the Minister said on Second Reading that it is too soon to carry out a full economic impact assessment. I was going to ask whether the Government have any plans to do one at all and, if so, whether he could tell us when, but I was very interested to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, said about the conversation she had with him before the Bill was introduced. Unfortunately, it was a briefing I was not at. In light of that, if the Government have already done sufficient work to allow them to produce in public an economic impact assessment without delaying anything, that sounds like a sensible way forward. I will be very interested to hear how my noble friend responds to what the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, said.

I clarify that, specifically, I do not support Amendment 48, which the noble Baroness introduced. As I understand it from the Member’s explanatory statement, it seems to enshrine what I might call the Openreach monopoly in multi-dwelling units. It would therefore limit competition in the way that we discussed earlier, even though we were not able to get into a full debate because my noble friend Lord Vaizey was not in the Chamber to move his amendments—noble Lords will know what I am talking about. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.