Proposed Merger of Three UK and Vodafone

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir George. I see we have three Knights Bachelor here today. I do not know what the collective noun is for Knights Bachelor; the obvious answer would be a round table. I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) on introducing this debate on an important issue that will affect not justó 27 million consumers, but the whole country. There is an important debate to be had. I was glad he paid tribute to Unite the union. It is not my trade union, but it has done a great deal of work in this field.

[Navendu Mishra]

You can join!

[Sir Chris Bryant]

No, I am in the GMB, if we are doing announcements. It was also good to hear from my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), and for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley). The latter made an interesting point about Teddy Roosevelt, who largely got elected on the back of resurrecting the old Sherman Anti-Trust Act, to break up the powerful railroad conglomerates in the United States of America. I have always thought that anti-trust legislation could be used to protect consumers; it is vital part of our artillery in Government.

It is always good to hear from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). It amazes me what he knows about; he knows about everything. He is a one-man Opposition, entirely on his own. He made a really important point about rural access to telephony. My constituency in the Rhondda is semi-rural. It feels quite congested, with lots of people living closely on top of each other, largely in terraced housing in the valleys, but everybody lives within a mile of a farm or a field, normally with sheep or cows in it. Some of our mobile telephone connection rates are shocking. Ofcom’s declared figures for all mobile operators show 100% connection. It certainly does not feel like that when I am walking up or down Hannah Street; it is impossible to ring anybody. I am painfully aware of the issues he raised. Today, mobile phone connection can be the difference between life and death. For many poorer families, it is their only means of telecommunication. It is how they apply for a job or register for a bank account. It is how most people run so many parts of their lives. That makes this an important debate.

In essence, there are two, slightly separate questions. The first is: what is good for consumers, the industry and the market? That is a matter primarily for the Competition and Markets Authority, although I shall mention a few things that I hope it will bear in mind when it comes to make its decision. Then there is the separate matter of the security of the UK’s mobile infrastructure from potentially hostile actors. That is a matter for the UK Government through the investment security unit in the Cabinet Office.

I turn to the competition issues first. As others have said, it will always be a matter of concern when two operators merge, taking the number from four to three, and especially so when that creates an operator with 27 million customers; it would be the largest in the field. That intrinsically implies that there will be less competition in the market, and that consumers might face higher charges. Indeed, Which? has made the obvious point:

“Reducing the number of network providers from four to three risks reducing the choices available to consumers, raising prices and lowering the quality of services available.”

To make a point in line with that made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside, prices really do matter to every family in our constituencies these days. I note that this year, tariff rates rose in EE’s case by 14.4%, in O2’s by 17.3%, in Vodafone and Three’s by 14.4%, and in BT Mobile’s by 14.4%. That is an awful lot of instances of 14.4%. That does not feel like a very competitive market to me.

Prices for lower-use mobile customers are even worse and much more worrying. Ofcom found a 13% year-on-year real-terms increase in the price of pay-monthly, SIM-only mobile services in 2022. The Labour party and I worry that those increases have contributed to inflation and the cost of living crisis. Yet a smartphone is no longer a luxury; many children do their homework on smartphones, and people fill in job applications on them, or run their companies from them. Both Three and Vodafone have increased prices above inflation recently, which might be an indication of their plans for the future. However, the price rises happened while the companies remain separate. I therefore urge the CMA to carefully consider the likely effect on both companies’ 27 million existing customers.

Vodafone and Three argue completely the opposite of what has been said in this debate, and I will deal with that. They claim that since the other two mobile network operators are much larger, the merger might, counterintuitively, help competition by introducing a genuine third mobile network operator of similar size. They also argue that the concern about competition in the mobile phone market is exaggerated, as the separate mobile virtual network operators market, made up of end providers such as Tesco Mobile, which do not own infrastructure but buy access from the mobile network operators, is very competitive, and has low barriers to entry. Again, Vodafone and Three claim that having a third player in addition to EE and O2, which can offer mobile virtual network operator carriage, is good for competition. They also argue that they need to merge in order to invest sufficiently in 5G, and have the stated aim of making £11 billion in investment over a decade.

[Navendu Mishra]

The information my hon. Friend is sharing is important. On the point that Vodafone and Three make about the merger creating a new outlet for virtual carriers—I think they are called MVNOs—Vodafone already supplies a number of MVNOs, including Asda Mobile, VOXI, which I think is its own brand, Lebara and several others. That does not make any sense at all. Surely consolidating the number of suppliers in the market will result in even higher price rises than the 14.4% he quoted.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I am not sure whether my hon. Friend has been reading my notes, but that was one of the points I was going to make. Those are issues that the CMA will have to look at very closely with an eye to making sure that consumers are protected.

As has already been pointed out, the idea of an £11 billion investment in 5G would be great if it were a bankable commitment, because I want to see the roll-out of high-quality 5G services across the whole country. As I have already said, that is essential if we are to have levelling up across the country, including in places such as the Rhondda.

Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), pointed out that mergers in other markets have not always led to increased investment; if anything, there has been a tendency in the other direction. I hope that the CMA will look at that. It is worth bearing in mind that the EU’s competition directorate blocked CK Hutchison’s plan to acquire O2 from Telefónica in 2016. The CMA may well want to look at the reasoning behind that decision, as some of the issues may still pertain today.

In any case, competition is not just about having three players competing for business. In practice, many consumers have little or no choice of operator because of local coverage issues. If the main player has only two other companies looking over its shoulder, it may too readily come to pricing decisions that extract maximum income for the company rather than provide enhanced value for the consumer. Again, I hope that the CMA will consider all those matters carefully.

There is one other market-related issue that I hope the CMA will consider: the trained workforce. Vodafone states that the merger is expected to result in

“£700 million of annual cost and capex synergies by the fifth…year post-completion”.

I want to know what that means for jobs. The market has regularly complained about shortages in its workforce. It is difficult to see how the merged company could make those significant savings without significant job losses, but until now it has been rather coy about that. Understandably, staff at the two companies and their union, Unite, are concerned about job losses, and we stand four-square behind those concerns. It would be an own goal for the UK telecoms industry to lose significant numbers of workers from its skilled workforce at this time. Far from helping to develop infrastructure in the UK, that could hinder it.

Let me turn to security issues. The merger will require the approval of the investment security unit, which was moved from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to the Cabinet Office. In effect, that means that, in relation to security issues, approval will be a decision for the Prime Minister. I do not want to exaggerate the security issues, but it is worth bearing in mind that the new company would have to handle extremely sensitive material regarding 27 million customers, as well as contracts for the NHS, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Defence, as has already been said.

Those contracts are currently with Vodafone, not with Three. In the case of the Ministry of Defence, for instance, Vodafone was recently awarded a contract to provide video conferencing and recording services to UK military courts in cases relating to sexual offences. That is an important matter that we should consider carefully. Does it make sense to give such a role to a company, CK Hutchison Holdings—the owner of Three—that is a Hong Kong-based and Cayman Islands-registered conglomerate that was formed only in 2015?

My questions for the Minister are as follows. What assessment have the Government made of the relationship between CK Hutchison and the Chinese state? If the merger were to go ahead, how would the Government seek to guarantee the security of national and personal data? Would they, for instance, consider carving out Government contracts from the deal? Under the provisions of the Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021 and the Government’s designated vendor direction, all telecoms operators are meant to strip Huawei from 5G by the end of 2027. What progress has been made on that, and what in particular has been done at Three and Vodafone? What impact do the Government feel that the Chinese security law in relation to Hong Kong has on Three and CK Hutchison Holdings?

On the security issues, can the Minister tell us what stage the decision is at? Will any Government decision, and the reasoning behind it, be published? Will Parliament be engaged in the process in any way? The Minister will know that the Intelligence and Security Committee has expressed its concerns about the process. The Committee said:

“The fact that the Government does not want there to be any meaningful scrutiny of sensitive investment deals…is of serious concern.”

It went on:

“Effective Parliamentary oversight is not some kind of ‘optional extra’ – it is a vital safeguard in any functioning Parliamentary democracy”.

That is particularly important for us to consider given that the Chinese state has sanctioned several Members of Parliament, including, incidentally, the Security Minister.

Given the recent stories about the Chinese state’s attempts to infiltrate Westminster and serious concerns regarding Chinese involvement in other parts of our national infrastructure, how will the Government ensure that the merger, if it goes ahead, does not undermine national and personal security? How will the Government ensure that all ministerial meetings with CK Hutchison Holdings and its subsidiaries are published in full and in good time, in case there is any inappropriate lobbying?

I want to say one final thing, because we are partly talking about China. Next week will see the 1,000th day of the incarceration of Jimmy Lai, who is a British national. The House will not be sitting, but I think all Members would want to put on the record that we believe he has been incorrectly and inappropriately held in custody. We would like to see him free.