Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Christian Matheson and Louise Haigh

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

12. If he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of his sector-based approach in delivering the aims of the Government’s industrial strategy.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

16. What steps the Government is taking to ensure that all sectors of the economy benefit from its industrial strategy.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Clark)]

We have had great success over the years in developing key sectors, including aerospace and the automotive sector. To build on this, we have set out proposals for new business-led sector deals in the industrial strategy. The first set of deals is already under development. We are taking steps to drive growth in sectors across the economy, including with funding for science, infrastructure and technical education.

Beer Duty

Debate between Christian Matheson and Louise Haigh

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on his speech; he told us that he was a substitute, but that was certainly not the introductory speech of a substitute. May I also take this opportunity to welcome my next-door neighbour and good friend, the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans), to his place? He is the chairman of the all-party parliamentary beer group. I was with him in the Terrace marquee the other night where, I must say, I enjoyed the award-winning beers from the Campaign for Real Ale, including Binghams vanilla stout, which I enjoyed—but only in moderation, of course.

I have had the pleasure of going to two pub openings in my constituency in the past couple of weeks. I went to the Handbridge pub, which has been refurbished by Punch Taverns, and I was very pleased to go to the Bull and Stirrup in Chester, which is a historic pub, particularly for the labour movement, to open it with the actor Ricky Tomlinson. It has been the beneficiary of a £2 million refurbishment courtesy of Wetherspoon’s. It employs 70-odd people—most of them very young—and is an excellent example of the fact that pubs and the industry provide employment, including at entry level, for people looking to make their way in their career.

I want to speak briefly about one of the big employers in my constituency, Admiral Taverns, which I am proud to represent. It employs 145 people in my constituency, has 850 pubs across the UK and is consistently winning awards. It was the leased and tenanted pub company of the year in 2013 and 2016, which makes it the current holder of that prestigious award, and I can tell Members this morning that it is again shortlisted for community pub operator of the year. The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay talked about the importance of community pubs. I worked with Admiral Taverns when it closed the Centurion pub in Vicars Cross in my constituency. I worked with community leaders Trevor Jones and Bob Hindhaugh, and we managed to persuade Admiral Taverns to reopen it with community leadership. That was a tough business, because the numbers had to add up, and part of the reason for the closure was the high beer taxation levels. I have worked with Admiral Taverns on a couple of projects since, and I am proud to do so. It is keen to see a continued light touch in the taxation of the pub sector.

In this short contribution I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the conflict between beer duty and business rates. I am told that business rates for pubs are calculated on turnover, but that that turnover includes beer duty. As Admiral Taverns point out that is, therefore, a double whammy—I believe that is the phrase, Sir Roger. They are being taxed on taxation, because turnover includes beer duty. I ask the Minister whether levels of beer duty or the business rates calculations can be taken into account.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

I want to reflect on that briefly, because my hon. Friend is making an exceptionally important point. Even before the re-evaluation of business rates, which will hit pubs particularly hard, pubs were paying 2.8% of the total business rates bill but only accounting for 0.5% of total business turnover. That is a crucial area that I hope the Minister will take into account and feed into the Budget negotiations for tomorrow.

[Christian Matheson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. There does seem to be a discrepancy. I would not like to think that pubs, which play such an important part in communities, as we correctly learned from the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay, are seen as a soft touch and an easy hit.

I am keen to convey on behalf of my constituents, particularly Admiral Taverns, with which I have an excellent relationship, that there needs to continue to be a light touch to allow the sector to flourish. We heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr Spellar), who is no longer in his place, about the effect on microbreweries when there was a reduction in taxation—that sector of the business expanded. I believe that could also help in the pub sector and in community pubs, but there is a real problem in the conflict between business rates and beer duty, and I ask the Minister to look at it.

Digital Economy Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Christian Matheson and Louise Haigh

Committee Debate: 9th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 27th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Louise Haigh]

The Opposition drafted the amendments and I accept that they may not be perfect, but the principle behind the idea of a data register is impossible to argue with. If the Minister claims that these audits will be done thoroughly and that they will be subject to the Freedom of Information Act anyway, I see no reason why they should not be proactively published, so that the public and Opposition Members can have full confidence that everything in the codes of practice, which are not statutory, is being properly adhered to.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend concur that a proactive publication might be a lot more cost-effective than chasing after hundreds or, indeed, thousands of FOI requests?

[Louise Haigh]

Absolutely. This is where the Government often miss a trick: the interrelationship between FOI and open data could drive significant efficiencies across the Government and provide citizens and the data community with valuable data, including data that are valuable to the digital economy. I appreciate that our amendment might not be perfectly drafted, but I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to the proactive publication of these audits and of all data-sharing arrangements across the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Matheson]

The Minister may have just clarified the point I was seeking to tease out of him. The problems that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley described show that, far from helping people with debt, the agencies acting on behalf of the Government have created debt that did not exist previously by misusing Government data. The Minister may have just assured us that that will not be the case. If the Minister is really concerned about reducing Government debt, perhaps the Government should have not chopped in half the number of HMRC tax inspectors and instead gone after the people who owe the Government tax.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 40 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 41

Further provisions about power in section 40

Amendments made: 120, in clause 41, page 40, line 5, at end insert—

“(ba) for the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of anti-social behaviour,”

This amendment and amendment 123 create a further exception to the bar on using information disclosed under Chapter 3 of Part 5 of the Bill for a purpose other than that for which it was disclosed. The amendments allow use for the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of anti-social behaviour.

Amendment 121, in clause 41, page 40, line 6, leave out

“(whether or not in the United Kingdom)”.

This amendment removes the provision stating that a criminal investigation for the purposes of clause 41(2) may be within or outside the United Kingdom. This is for consistency and on the basis that a reference to a criminal investigation covers an investigation overseas in any event.

Amendment 122, in clause 41, page 40, line 8, leave out

“and whether or not in the United Kingdom”.

This amendment removes the provision stating that legal proceedings for the purposes of clause 41 may be within or outside the United Kingdom. This is for consistency and on the basis that a reference to legal proceedings covers proceedings overseas in any event.

Amendment 123, in clause 41, page 40, line 11, at end insert—

‘( ) In subsection (2)(ba) “anti-social behaviour” has the same meaning as in Part 1 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (see section 2 of that Act).”—(Chris Skidmore.)

See the explanatory statement for amendment 120.

Clause 41, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 42

Confidentiality of personal information

Amendments made: 124, in clause 42, page 41, line 4, at end insert—

“(da) for the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of anti-social behaviour,”

This amendment and amendment 127 create a further exception to the bar on the further disclosure of information disclosed under Chapter 3 of Part 5 of the Bill, allowing disclosure for the prevention or detection of crime or the prevention of anti-social behaviour.

Amendment 125, in clause 42, page 41, line 5, leave out

“(whether or not in the United Kingdom)”.

This amendment removes the provision stating that a criminal investigation for the purposes of clause 42(2) may be within or outside the United Kingdom. This is for consistency and on the basis that a reference to a criminal investigation covers an investigation overseas in any event.

Amendment 126, in clause 42, page 41, line 8, leave out

“and whether or not in the United Kingdom”.

This amendment removes the provision stating that legal proceedings for the purposes of clause 42(2) may be within or outside the United Kingdom. This is for consistency and on the basis that a reference to legal proceedings covers proceedings overseas in any event.

Amendment 127, in clause 42, page 41, line 12, at end insert—

‘( ) In subsection (2)(da) “anti-social behaviour” has the same meaning as in Part 1 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 (see section 2 of that Act).”

See the explanatory statement for amendment 124.

Amendment 128, in clause 42, page 41, line 13, leave out subsections (3) and (4) insert—

‘( ) A person commits an offence if—

(a) the person discloses personal information in contravention of subsection (1), and

(b) at the time that the person makes the disclosure, the person knows that the disclosure contravenes that subsection or is reckless as to whether the disclosure does so.” —(Chris Skidmore.)

This amendment applies to the disclosure of personal information in contravention of subsection (1) of clause 42. It has the effect that it is an offence to do so only if the person knows that the disclosure contravenes that subsection or is reckless as to whether it does so.

Clause 42, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 43 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 44

Code of practice

Amendment made: 129, in clause 44, page 42, line 7, at end insert—

‘( ) The code of practice must be consistent with the code of practice issued under section 52B (data-sharing code) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (as altered or replaced from time to time).”—(Chris Skidmore.)

This amendment requires a code of practice issued under clause 44 by the relevant Minister and relating to the disclosure of information under clause 40 to be consistent with the data-sharing code of practice issued by the Information Commissioner under the Data Protection Act 1998.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Louise Haigh]

In evidence, Citizens Advice told us that an estimated £1 in every £5 of debt in this country is debt to the Government. It found that its clients can suffer detriment when public bodies have overly aggressive, unco-ordinated and inconsistent approaches to debt collection. There is also fairly substantial evidence that central Government debt collection lags behind the high standards expected of other creditors, including water companies, council tax collection departments, banks and private debt collectors.

I ask the Minister to consider extending the common standard financial statement to set affordable payments, as the energy, water, banking and commercial debt collection sectors do. That is demonstrated by research from StepChange, which found that in terms of debt collection, those facing severe financial difficulty were likely to rate the DWP and local authorities only just behind bailiffs as those most likely to treat them unfairly.

Digital Economy Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Christian Matheson and Louise Haigh

Committee Debate: 10th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 27th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Louise Haigh]

We do not wish to oppose Ofcom’s new role in regulating the BBC, for which clause 75 provides—as the Minister knows, we supported the BBC charter agreement last week in the House—but we have some concerns, which are shared by the BBC, about how Ofcom’s new role will work out in practice.

Distinctiveness is an absolutely vital characteristic of the BBC and its services. It is one of the things that justifies its public funding. The BBC should deliver its public purposes and mission, and it should serve all audiences, through distinctive services. Critically, distinctiveness should be judged at the level of services, rather than programmes. That does not mean that the BBC should focus on “market failure” programming or never make a programme that the commercial sector might make. Instead, the test should be that every BBC programme aspires to be the very best in its genre. Overall, the range of programmes in the BBC services should be distinguishable from its commercial competitors. There is a concern that Ofcom could be too prescriptive in the standards it expects of the BBC. For example, it might focus on quotas, such as the number of religious or news hours, rather than a substantive, qualitative assessment, and rather than a standard, such as high-quality journalism.

Evidence shows that BBC services are distinctive and have become more so in recent years. Audiences agree: more than 80% of the people responding to the Government’s charter review consultation said that the BBC serves audiences well, almost three quarters said that BBC services are distinctive and about two thirds said that they think it has a positive impact on the market.

The definition of distinctiveness in the agreement and the framework for measuring it are therefore critically important. The section of the charter agreement that relates to the new powers that will go to Ofcom requires Ofcom to set prescriptive and extensive regulatory requirements, which must be contained in an operating licence for BBC services. Ofcom must have a presumption against removing any of the current requirements on the BBC—there are about 140 quotas in the BBC’s existing service licences—and seek to increase the requirements overall by both increasing existing requirements and adding new ones.

Ofcom has been given detailed guidance about what aspects of distinctiveness it must consider for the BBC’s TV, radio and online services. That follows an old-fashioned approach to content regulation based on prescribing inputs, rather than securing audience outcomes, such as quality and impact. The BBC is concerned that it will introduce a prescriptive and inflexible regulatory framework that could restrict the BBC’s editorial independence and creativity.

Clarity about the definition of distinctiveness would be welcome. It should be applied to services, not individual programmes. The extensive content quotas in clause 2 of the charter should be a response to a failure to be distinctive, not the starting point.

[Christian Matheson]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, when the Government came up with the idea of distinctiveness, they themselves were not absolutely clear what it meant? Frankly, we are still at the stage at which the Government might say, “We don’t know what it is, but we might recognise it when we see it.”

[Louise Haigh]

That is a very great concern. There is a serious risk of confusion about how the new regulatory regime is going to work for both Ofcom and the BBC. To be frank, I do not think quotas are appropriate in this respect. I have got nothing against quotas—I was selected on an all-women shortlist, which aim to increase the number of women in the parliamentary Labour party.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Matheson]

That is an extremely good point, and it reads back to the point that I made earlier: when there has to be a review of the cost of the policy, and perhaps a reduction in the availability of free TV licences, Ministers—perhaps they will be shadow Ministers by that time—[Interruption.] We fight on to win. Conservative Members will be able to point to the BBC and say, “It was the BBC what done it”, in order to evade all responsibility. But they will not evade responsibility, because this will not be forgotten, if they get away with doing it. There is a much better alternative: the excellent new clause proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley.

[Louise Haigh]

I am appalled by what is, as my hon. Friend is clearly laying out, a naked attempt to evade responsibility. Does he share my concern that this is the beginning of a slippery slope? Where exactly does this end? Once the principle that the Government are attempting to put in the Bill is in legislation, to whom else can they outsource responsibility for their social security policies?

[Christian Matheson]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am cautious about straying too far from the point under discussion, but she says that this is the beginning of a slippery slope. It is not, because the Government have form in this area. I look to you, Mr Streeter, for a little bit of latitude here.

There are, for example, massive cuts to local government funding; the Government have taken huge amounts of money away from local authorities, expect them to come up with cuts and reductions in services, and then say, “It is nothing to do with us; blame your local authority.” There is one point on which I would disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley: this is not the beginning of a slippery slope; it is a continuation of form. The Government have been rumbled, and they know it.

Concentrix

Debate between Christian Matheson and Louise Haigh

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

We are extremely hopeful that this sorry state of affairs marks the beginning of the end of payment by results in our welfare system. It has no place there, it creates perverse outcomes, and it has ruined the lives of thousands of people. Our social security system should be there to support people in their time of need, not to allow unaccountable conglomerates to make easy money chasing the voiceless and the vulnerable. Now is the time to draw a line under the grotesque profit model in our welfare system, because that model has failed: it has failed the individuals it was set up to help; it has failed employees; and it has failed the taxpayer.

All of us have horrific stories of individuals who have fallen foul of Concentrix. In my constituent’s case, her tax credits were cancelled while she was in a coma. Rather than answering for these failures, which lie squarely at the Government’s door, Ministers have preferred to throw this hapless contractor under the bus. However, as one senior Concentrix employee wrote to me:

“Every single action we took was directly informed by HMRC and was compliant in full with their guidance… there will be no investigation because there are paper trails after paper trails showing that we have only ever followed client instructions on amending claims.”

I was pleased to hear today that that is no longer the case and that there will be an investigation, because from start to finish this has been a mess entirely of the Government’s own making, and one for which they have not yet answered.

The company that conducted the trial that preceded Concentrix, Transactis, incorrectly removed entire awards regardless of evidence provided to the contrary. Despite the alarm bells that should have been ringing loud and clear in their ears, Ministers decided to push on. It was the beginning of a pattern that is now all too familiar.

Ministers have still not answered for structuring a contract that put maximising revenue at its heart in attempting to assess error and fraud—not accuracy, not meeting quality service standards, and certainly not customer service, but making as much money as possible off the backs of the vulnerable. Ministers have not answered for the measures they included in the contract to maximise revenue. HMRC “profiled”—that is the Government’s own word—1.4 million vulnerable individuals and then unleashed Concentrix to carry out its dirty work.

We do not know—they will not tell me, despite repeated requests—what indicators the Government used to establish which groups to target. Given what we have heard today, it is clear who was in that demographic: single mothers with children. It is some measure of justice that it was women like that—thousands of them across the country—who brought this contract crashing down with their articulate, brilliant campaign.

That is not the only issue with the contract, because the process also turned the burden of proof on its head. HMRC was asking tax credit claimants to prove that their claim had not been made in error. They were asking people to prove a negative, as my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) explained so eloquently. The Tax Credits Act 2002 clearly states that HMRC can amend or terminate tax credit awards only if it has significant grounds for believing that they are erroneous. It does not allow them to shift the burden of proof on to the claimant to disprove that a tax credit award has been made erroneously. That led one young mother to say to me, in tears, that she felt that she was being “treated like a criminal” and that Concentrix was treating her as “guilty until proven innocent.” One mistake like that would have been unacceptable, but 11,000 people had to apply for mandatory reconsideration in the past year alone. That cannot simply be passed off as a mistake; it was the deliberate design of the contract itself.

HMRC employed a contractor with just 500 staff to target over 2 million people. That meant the company’s pressured, poorly trained and low-paid staff were being instructed to open dozens of highly sensitive cases every day, leaving the phone lines permanently engaged, as we have heard. Concentrix staff have told me that the call volumes were such that the company would have needed to triple its staff in order to answer the phones.

Astonishingly, despite the failure of the trial, despite the highly sensitive nature of the contract, and despite the sheer volume of individuals a completely untested private sector provider had been designated to pursue, we now know that the Government did not actually monitor the performance for the first year of the contract. HMRC had no idea how many performance failures the contractor was incurring. Once it started monitoring that, it soon found out: over 120 breaches in the space of just nine months; and 13 black performance failures. Ironically, HMRC is up for an award this year for analysis and use of evidence. I very much hope that this is not viewed as best practice across Whitehall.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the chaos she is outlining will end up costing the taxpayer a whole lot more than any money that was saved in the first place?

Digital Economy Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Christian Matheson and Louise Haigh

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 20th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Christian Matheson]

I should like to add to the comments made by hon. Friends. My concern is that if there are too many gaps and loopholes in the legislation, that may, perversely, put greater pressures on the enforcement authorities, because they will have to seek out so many different mouse-holes down which some of the content providers may run and disappear. I am slightly concerned and ask the Minister to consider the danger of an unintended consequence, because if it is not possible to stamp out content immediately, vital resources and focus will be diverted.

[Louise Haigh]

Does my hon. Friend also agree that with too many loopholes in the legislation, the more responsible providers of content will include age verification measures but users who want to avoid those tools will be pushed on to perhaps more extreme or violent pornography and perhaps even in to the deep web?

[Christian Matheson]

Yes. I raised this with the gentleman from the British Board of Film Classification, I believe, and I questioned his assertion about the top 50 websites. He said that the process would not stop there but proceed to the next 50, but if those 50 content providers are constantly moving all over the place, it will be rather like a game of whack-a-mole. Unless we have a sufficiently large mallet to give the mole a whack early on—[Interruption.] This is a serious business, and if I am sounding a bit jocular, that is not meant to take away from the serious issue. If we do not have the tools to address those who are deliberately not complying, and those who do not wish to comply with the regulations that we are putting in place to protect our children, I fear that we will be chasing after them too much.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley is right that there will also be the danger that investigative authorities use too many of their resources to go after this, when there are other things they need to go after as well. We need to put the tools at the disposal of the investigative and enforcement authorities, to give them the opportunity to make as clean an attack as possible on the providers that are not complying with the desire of this House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Louise Haigh]

The hon. Lady has got ahead of the potential Daily Mail headline when the freedom of information request comes in for her Google search history.

I am not convinced that anybody would want to go through a process as the one I have just described, or even one significantly less convoluted. I suggest that instead they would seek entertainment on a site that did not impose such hurdles. The BBFC in its evidence made the telling point that the majority of the viewing population get their content from the top 50 sites, so it is very easy to target those—we see that entrenched in clause 23. The problem with that, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester pointed out, is that targeting those sites may push viewers to the next 50 sites, and so on. We therefore need to ensure that the process is as straightforward and as minimal as possible.

[Christian Matheson]

My concern about users being pushed to the next 50 sites is that those sites are much less regulated, and I hazard a guess that they are much more likely to be at the extreme end of the spectrum.

[Louise Haigh]

That is exactly my concern. I imagine that the top 50 providers are not as hardcore, are less extreme and may not include such violent images; as we move on to the next 50 or the 50, there is a danger of images becoming more extreme.

The solution must not result in the wholesale tracking or monitoring of individuals’ lawful online activities or the collection of data with a view to unlawful profiling of individuals. I am not convinced that the BBFC is properly resourced to undertake the significant additional workload, nor am I convinced that the practicalities of the software that have so far been exhibited, or their implications, have been properly worked out.

[Christian Matheson]

My hon. Friend is generous in giving way. She is absolutely right about resourcing. I am no technical expert, but does she agree that such a database may be a prime target for hackers unless it is properly resourced and defended?

[Louise Haigh]

That is absolutely right, and I will come to that point. We heard evidence from the BFFC that it intended potentially to use age-verified mobile telephony to ensure that sites are properly age verified, but I am afraid that that approach is also flawed. First, there is the obvious issue that there is nothing to stop an underage child using the information attached to that phone—be it the phone number or the owner’s name—to log on and falsely verify. Equally, there are enormous privacy issues with the use of mobile-verified software to log on.

The BBFC said clearly that it was interested not in identity but merely in the age of the individual attempting to access online pornography, but as we all know, our smartphones contain a wealth of information that can essentially be used to create a virtual clone. They are loaded with our internet conversations, financial data, health records, and in many cases the location of our children. There is a record of calls made and received, text messages, photos, contact lists, calendar entries and internet browsing history—the hon. Member for Devizes may want to take note of that—and they allow access to email accounts, banking institutions and websites such as Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and Netflix. Many people instruct their phones to remember passwords for those apps so they can quickly be opened, which means that they are available to anyone who gets into the phone.

All that information is incredibly valuable—it has been said that data are the new oil—and I imagine that most people would not want it to be obtained, stored, sold or commercialised by online pornography sites. The risks of creating databases that potentially contain people’s names, locations, credit card details—you name it—alongside their pornographic preferences should be quite clear to anyone in the room and at the forefront of people’s minds given the recent Ashley Madison hack. I am not condoning anyone using that website to look for extramarital affairs, nor am I privileging the preferences or privacy of people who wish to view online pornography over the clearly vastly more important issue of child protection. However, one consequence of that hack was the suicide of at least three individuals, and we should proceed with extreme caution before creating any process that would result in the storing of data that could be leaked, hacked or commercialised and would otherwise be completely private and legitimate.

That is the reasoning behind our reasonable and straightforward amendment, which would place a series of duties on the age-verification regulator to ensure that adequate privacy safeguards were provided, any data obtained or stored were not for commercial use, and security was given due consideration. The unintended consequences of the Government’s proposals will not end merely at the blocking of preferences, privacy or security issues, but will include pushing users on to illegal or at the very least non-compliant sites. We are walking a thin tightrope between making age verification so light-touch as to be too easily bypassed by increasingly tech-savvy under-18s and making it far too complicated and intrusive and therefore pushing viewers on to either sites that do not use age verification but still offer legitimate content or completely illegal sites that stray into much more damaging realms. These provisions clearly require a lot more consultation with the industry, and I am confident that the BBFC will do just that, but the Opposition would feel a lot more confident and assured if the regulator was required to adhere to these basic principles, which we should all hold dear: privacy, proportionality and safety.

Digital Economy Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Christian Matheson and Louise Haigh

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Louise Haigh]

I know that we covered this issue on Second Reading, but I was not the shadow Minister at the time. This legislation is not a Bill for the digital economy. The tech sector has been waiting for some time for the Government’s digital strategy and vision for this crucial area of our economy; to say that it is disappointed with the lack of ambition and strategic direction in the Bill would be a gross understatement.

We heard a damning indictment from one witness last week. He described his business as a tech start-up in Canary Wharf, and said that the Bill would do absolutely nothing to help it. To call it the “Digital Economy Bill” is quite insulting given that it is actually a collection of disparate measures—a mixture of amendments from across a range of Departments vaguely tied together using the word “digital”. Over the next few sittings we will focus on where the Bill could be improved, and I am sure that on Report we will return to what the Bill requires if it is genuinely to aid, boost and improve the digital economy.

On clause 1, we need to do much more than produce a mere headline USO. If we are talking about access to digital services, what are we prepared to do to support that access? Does that support simply cover subsidies on infrastructure in more remote areas, or should it also cover education? If it is more than just enabling access, we need to make sure digital skills and knowledge are embedded in our education system as well as providing for the older generation.

Similarly, as we discussed earlier, we need to think beyond mere access and ask ourselves what sort of targets we want on usage. What goals follow the strategy of the USO? It is brilliant if everyone has 10 megabits per second, but how many people are able to use the internet? How many young people are studying IT or related classes? What percentage of the workforce are in technical-related roles? The fact is that not only is the USO unambiguous, but it is long overdue. As I said earlier, Labour left fully costed plans to deliver superfast by 2012.

In 50% of rural premises the infrastructure is simply not there to carry more than 10 megabits, and for one in five premises it will not carry more than 5 megabits. It was suggested to us by a couple of witnesses that the USO was simply in line with BT’s proposed business plan. The chief executive of BT confirmed this to us: they can implement the USO by 2020 without any further public money, with 24 megabits to 97% or 98% of the country, fixed broadband of 10 megabits to 99%, and the last 1% likely to be done by 4G or satellite. The question is, therefore, why this legislation is necessary. One witness explicitly said:

“I think you should be very worried when you hear large incumbents saying, “Set up a universal service obligation but don’t let it get too far ahead of what we’ve got in our business case.” That is not what business should be doing. Businesses will invest more if they are scared their customers will go elsewhere, not because they have been given a promise by Government”.––[Official Report, Digital Economy Bill Public Bill Committee, 11 October 2016; c. 10, Q14.]

If we are really to tackle the issues in our broadband market, the evidence we have seen suggests that the USO is—at best—nice to have, but at worst it is a serious market distortion. In fact, the Government should be considering much deeper issues such as the structure of the market, much-needed investment in infrastructure, the need for planning reform to enable the roll-out of 5G and the need to be much more imaginative around future licence auctions. For example, as we have heard time and again, there is the German model to license outwards-in so that those who are missed out on previous rounds are serviced first.

Furthermore, we have heard in one form or another that all roads lead back to Openreach, and the Bill really could have been an opportunity to reflect on that. Baroness Harding believed that

“competition will do the majority of this, and we should try our damnedest to make the private sector fund most of this through competition”.

She concluded that,

“the solution is to separate Openreach completely and put a universal service obligation on an independent Openreach”. ––[Official Report, Digital Economy Bill Public Bill Committee, 11 October 2016; c. 6, Q4.]

We heard in evidence that Openreach could and should be much more ambitious, deliver a better service and be in control of its own board, but evidence was given that, to achieve that, Openreach needs to be completely independent. It was argued that we have not been able to see how far a competitive commercial roll-out can go because we do not currently have a competitive commercial market, and we cannot have that market reform until, at the very least, we separate out Openreach.

One witness said:

“if we are going to be ambitious, to enable companies like ours to continue to grow, invest and innovate, we need a national solution, and a national solution will depend upon the national network owner, which is Openreach...That is why the structure of the industry does matter; the ability to get capital into the industry to invest in the kinds of future networks we need is critical”.––[Official Report, Digital Economy Bill Public Bill Committee, 11 October 2016; c. 19, Q31.]

Ofcom has been unambiguous in saying that network competition—having multiple network operators on the ground and available to consumers—is the best driver of investment incentives, of superfast broadband penetration and of consumer outcomes. We would like the Minister to set a clear timeframe today for the response to the Ofcom consultation on Openreach. The consultation closed two weeks ago and, as I understand it, Ofcom are now in private consultation with BT. The public and Parliament need to know when we can expect the Ofcom response and what the next steps in the process will be.

[Christian Matheson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems with Openreach is that, because it does not have a customer-facing aspect, its customer service and consequently its reputation have been extremely poor?

[Louise Haigh]

That is certainly one of the issues. I personally have poor experience with Openreach and I am sure many members of the Committee and their constituents will have, too. Public satisfaction with Openreach customer service is incredibly low and needs urgent investigation. However, we need more detail on some areas that have not been put in the Bill, but which were included in the statement of intent, as mentioned earlier.

An example is the fact that connections will be subject to a cost threshold, above which consumers will still have the right to fast, reliable broadband, but may have to contribute to the cost of connection. That is not much of a surprise, as it happens with the USO for telephone lines. There, the cost threshold is £3,400. Is it possible for the Minister to provide any guesstimate about the threshold for the broadband USO? Once again, we are being asked to vote on legislation that does not include vital details that could make the entire proposal almost completely useless. If the threshold is set too low, the right will essentially be meaningless for the vast majority of consumers, who already miss out, are on unacceptably low broadband speeds and are forced to pay unacceptably high prices. Will the threshold have any form of parliamentary scrutiny, or is this really enabling legislation that will allow the Minister to get his head around the details after the fact?

As we have discussed, we do not believe that the headline figure of 10 megabits is sufficiently ambitious, and nor is a headline speed sufficient when considering the quality of broadband available to the population as a whole. That point was raised by several hon. Members on Second Reading, and by the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire in evidence sittings. It is a source of great frustration in rural areas, in particular when customers are promised mobile coverage or broadband speed that are not delivered. The Bill does little to correct that. Yes, it provides for automatic compensation, but I am confident that customers would much rather have coverage—and reliability of coverage—than recompense.

The Minister did not answer questions about BDUK earlier, so I will put them again, if that is all right, Mr Streeter. Is the Minister confident that access is the same as capacity, and that there is sufficient capacity in the cabinets in areas where BDUK has been rolled out to allow take-up? Does he believe that BDUK should be measured on take-up rather than access to broadband? I should be grateful if the Minister also updated the Committee on conversations with the Advertising Standards Authority about its code, so that companies can advertise a certain speed only when a certain percentage of their customers in that area get that speed. The ASA and its committees have been looking at that issue for some time, but surely the Bill is the perfect opportunity to speed up the process and provide much needed certainty and lower prices for rural customers.

Finally, we welcome plans to deliver superfast broadband connection to sites with more than 100 homes from January. That was raised time and again on Second Reading. It is absurd not to have minimum levels of broadband in new homes when we would never consider not connecting water or electricity to any new home, regardless of the numbers on the site. As the Countryside Alliance pointed out, the figure of 100 is too urban-centric, as rural areas are moving towards small-scale developments. I hope that the Government will keep the commitment under review and ensure that the figure is reduced in future, if necessary.

We must absolutely not let the USO get in the way of investment in developing super and ultrafast capabilities across the whole UK. We heard evidence stressing the threat that communities that might be pleased with 10 megabits today will be furious about not having 1 gigabit in three or four, or potentially 10 years’ time. Indeed, providers such as Virgin, and even smaller ones, such as Gigaclear, are now building proper fibre to the premises, providing up to 1 gig in extremely rural areas; so I fear that the target will quickly become completely outdated, even given the flexibility built into secondary legislation.

Overall, the Opposition support the commitment, with all the caveats I have outlined, and I am happy to support clause 1 to stand part of the Bill.

Digital Economy Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Christian Matheson and Louise Haigh

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Louise Haigh]

Q My question follows on neatly from that. While I am sure that the regulation will tackle those top 50 sites, it obviously comes nowhere near tackling the problems that Mr Wardle outlined, and the crimes, such as grooming, that can flow from those problems. There was a lot of discussion on Second Reading about peer-to-peer and social media sites that you have called “ancillary”. No regulation in the world is going to stop that. Surely, the most important way to tackle that is compulsory sex education at school.

Alan Wardle: Yes. In terms of online safety, a whole range of things are needed and a whole lot of players. This will help the problem. We would agree and want to work with BBFC about a proportionality test and identifying where the biggest risks are to children, and for that to be developing. That is not the only solution.

Yes, we believe that statutory personal, social and health education and sexual relationships education is an important part of that. Giving parents the skills and understanding of how to keep their children safe is also really important. But there is a role for industry. Any time I have a conversation with an MP or parliamentarian about this and they have a child in their lives—whether their own, or nieces or nephews—we quickly come to the point that it is a bit of a nightmare. They say, “We try our best to keep our children safe but there is so much, we don’t know who they are speaking to” and all the rest of it.

How do we ensure that when children are online they are as safe as they are when offline? Of course, things happen in the real world as well and no solution is going to be perfect. Just as, in terms of content, we would not let a seven-year-old walk into the multiplex and say, “Here is ‘Finding Nemo’ over here and here is hard core porn—off you go.”

We need to build those protections in online so we know what children are seeing and to whom they speaking and also skilling up children themselves through school and helping parents. But we believe the industry has an important part to play in Government, in terms of regulating and ensuring that spaces where children are online are as safe as they can be.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Q To follow on from the Minister’s question, you feel you are able to tackle roughly the top 50 most visited sites. Is there a danger that you then replace those with the next top 50 that are perhaps less regulated and less co-operative? How might we deal with that particular problem, if it exists?

David Austin: When I said “the top 50”, I was talking in terms of the statistics showing that 70% of people go to the top 50. We would start with the top 50 and work our way through those, but we would not stop there. We would look to get new data every quarter, for example. As you say, sites will come in and out of popularity. We will keep up to date and focus on those most popular sites for children.

We would also create something that we have, again, done with the mobile operators. We would create an ability for members of the public—a parent, for example—to contact us about a particular website if that is concerning them. If an organisation such as the NSPCC is getting information about a particular website or app that is causing problems in terms of under-age access, we would take a look at that as well. In creating this proportionality test what we must not do is be as explicit as to say that we will look only at the top 50.

First, that is not what we would do. Secondly, we do not want anyone to think, “Okay, we don’t need to worry about the regulator because we are not on their radar screen.” It is very important to keep up to date with what are the most popular sites and, therefore, the most effective in dealing with under-age regulation, dealing with complaints from members of the public and organisations such as the NSPCC.

Alan Wardle: I think that is why the enforcement part is so important as well, so that people know that if they do not put these mechanisms in place there will be fines and enforcement notices, the flow of money will be stopped and, crucially, there is that backstop power to block if they do not operate as we think they should in this country. The enforcement mechanisms are really important to ensure that the BBFC can do their job properly and people are not just slipping from one place to the next.

Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Debate between Christian Matheson and Louise Haigh

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh]

I completely agree. That point was made forcibly in the urgent question last Friday. Department for Business, Innovation and Skills workers were watching and were horrified by the Minister’s response to that question. It is not understandable that those people should be concerned that their jobs are only secure for the time being, until the Government can force through weakened redundancy terms? Given the announcement last week, people across the civil service will understandably be further concerned.

On the specific issues, people who have given long service to the public sector—midwives, nurses, librarians, social workers; people whom we, on either side of the House, could not describe as fat cats—have dedicated their lives to improving society. Is the Minister comfortable that these incredible workers will be impacted by the cap on exit payments? Why, when this policy was proposed last year by the Minister for Employment, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), were people earning less than £27,000 explicitly exempted to

“protect the very small number of low earning, long-serving public servants”?

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, on the one hand, the Government are always ready to praise the work and contribution of public sector workers, in particular at the lower end of the scale, but that, on the other, it seems they are not ready to recognise that financially when those workers come to the end of their careers and face the difficult decisions that have to be taken by management?

[Louise Haigh]

Exactly. That is a really important point, given that this is a clear U-turn in Government policy following the announcement last year. There is absolutely no such exemption in the Bill. In the NHS, for example, even without the inclusion of pension strain payments, according to research by the union Unison, the proposed cap will affect nurses, midwives and paramedics with long service. These issues were the subject of very high level negotiations, where a higher level cap was set to mitigate against penalising long service in key front-line services. For this reason, will the Minister consider exempting people with salaries on or below average earnings?

On industrial relations, the exit payment cap will be implemented across a range of public service areas that already have fair, transparent and effective procedures in place which arise from collective agreements negotiated between employers and trade unions that are sensitive to the specific issues facing each sector. If we have anything to learn from the junior doctors’ action, it is that good industrial relations are vital and that we should not legislate haphazardly to weaken terms and conditions.

The Secretary of State said we should move away from the “Whitehall knows best” attitude—I could not agree more—but the Bill weakens that ambition by imposing an arbitrary cap across the civil service on exit payments and by restricting the freedom and flexibility that employers require to manage restructuring and redundancies effectively, at a time when public sector employers require it most. The public sector is in the middle of its most dramatic budget cuts in decades, and employers are having to restructure almost every aspect of public services to meet their new budgetary constraints. In moving the goalposts in the middle of an extended period of large-scale reorganisation, without an initial period of protection, particularly for staff over 50, the Government are further limiting the opportunity for employers fairly to reconsider strategic and operational decisions made in previous reorganisations and planned to be effected in stages on the assumption that current agreements and policies would apply. Will the Minister therefore consider a grace period for public sector employers undergoing reorganisation?

On the public purse, the Government seek to justify the cap solely on the basis of the cost of payments to staff in the public sector between 2011 and 2014. This is the only evidence provided in their consultation, but it fails to recognise that, during the same period, employment in the civil service fell by 107,350, under the current civil service compensation scheme arrangements. No evidence is provided to demonstrate that the cap will deliver value-for-money savings, as changes in the compensation payments naturally affect the number of staff willing to exit the public sector, which might engender higher costs elsewhere.

As for the coalition Government’s early conciliation scheme, which has actually worked quite well, the proposals could have a perverse impact by diverting people to tribunals, where settlements will not be capped, and avoiding settlements at this optimal stage. Ministers should therefore consider exempting such conciliation payments from the cap.

Finally, two more important exceptions should be considered: first, whistleblowers, and secondly, people retiring on ill-health grounds. Whistleblowing is a vital part of our democracy, and capping settlements in such cases could easily deter people from blowing the whistle, given that this often puts their livelihoods and reputations at risk. The Government have made clear their intention not to include those retiring on ill-health grounds and that this will be put in secondary legislation, so will the Minister take this opportunity to make it clear that this is the case and that such people will be explicitly exempted?