Digital Economy Bill (Fourth sitting)

Claire Perry Excerpts

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

[Christian Matheson]

I absolutely agree with that suggestion. BT has used copper assets well to manage to get a large proportion of the country up to a decent standard quickly. The Minister made a good point in the evidence sessions when he challenged the BT director of strategy on the number of premises that were connected to fibre, by suggesting that in fact those premises were all connected not by fibre, but by copper loop to a box that was connected by fibre. The Minister was absolutely right to make that proposal. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley made an extremely valuable point about the controversies that continue within the telecoms industry. It is not an industry that sits comfortably with itself; everyone seems to be at each other’s throats. There is competition, there is healthy competition and there are outright dog-eat-dog hostilities. I wonder whether they fight too much among themselves and take their eyes off the ball when it comes to serving the consumer. A proper, annual parliamentary process that can focus the attention of the industry, as well as of Ministers, and give Parliament the chance to consider how this important and critical piece of national infrastructure is rolling out would be extremely valuable. To quote the Minister, it would hold the industry’s feet to the fire annually.

The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk is right: we should not be limiting our ambition. The amendment proposes an annual review to see how far we can take our ambition in the forthcoming period. I hope to see—as the hon. Gentleman suggests—a roll-out of fibre to premises as the baseline standard in coming years. The one concern I have about the industry, which the amendment touches on, is that we will be driving forward with higher capacity and capability standards across 80% of the country, but those areas that are currently notspots will remain notspots. I hope that will be covered by other parts of the Bill, and that the Minister will address that. This amendment, though, will focus the attention of the industry on delivery by requiring it to report annually to Parliament via Ministers and via Ofcom. We can see who is delivering and who is not, and why not. It is an excellent amendment, and I am pleased to support my hon. Friend.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

I sympathise with many of the things that the hon. Member for the City of Chester has said. I cannot promise that I will not visit during a political campaign, because it is a seat I would like to see returned to the fold, despite his good efforts.

While I understand the spirit in which amendment 82 and new clause 9 have been tabled, I reject their premise. We heard clearly in the evidence sessions what is wrong with the Government—and, indeed, one provider—trying to over-specify and push out a solution. I know from my own constituency that, although there has been decent progress, it has not gone far enough—I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman on that. There are specific communities—for instance Shalbourne, a beautiful village—where there are insoluble notspots. These houses seem unable to be connected to the exchange because they connect to a Hampshire exchange, not a Wiltshire one, so all the good work Wiltshire council has done putting in local taxpayers’ money and working with BT Openreach is of no benefit whatsoever to those constituents. In Worton, where we actually had the discussion with BT, there is a dividing line right down a street: some houses are connected and some are not. We all know that that is increasingly very bad for house prices and really does affect people’s mindset when they move into the constituency. In my area, the Lydeway business park, which includes a very fine farm shop and other small businesses, is desperate to get better broadband connectivity, but we cannot seem to get it.

We heard from TalkTalk and other witnesses that the job is not to specify what the solution should look like and have lots of arduous burdens on Government to report back, but to empower consumers to say, “Let’s go out and talk to Gigaclear.” Or we could look at what has been done in a part of Cumbria, represented by one of my hon. Friends, where communities have come together, worked with farmers to waive fees for crossing land and come up with a community-led solution.

Empowering consumers, as the Bill will do, would enable them to demand a legal right to a decent level of broadband connectivity. I accept that 10 megabits per second is an aspiration for many premises already—they do not get anything like it—and I completely accept the point that that may not be enough in future.

We also heard in the witness sessions that technology in terms of compressing more and more data and information down existing fibre or copper is improving all the time. It might actually be sufficient for some families. I have managed to upgrade with the cabinet in Upavon to about 15 down and 10 up. It is nowhere near enough when all the kids are home and they are on Netflix and other things but it is not bad. If I yell at them loudly enough to get off the wi-fi, I can actually get my constituency work done, albeit from home.

I contrast that with what it was like before when, if the hamsters pedalled fast enough, I might have been able to send one email an hour. It is a massive improvement to productivity in the Perry household.

[Calum Kerr]

I hope the hon. Lady would not yell at me to get off the wi-fi. She is making some good points but I would try to draw her back to the substance of the amendments. There is no focus on technology. We want to ensure that the USO is delivering for all our constituents. All we want is a review to monitor progress and ensure that the design is fit for purpose. It is not about technology so I urge the hon. Lady to think again.

[Claire Perry]

I accept the spirit of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I did sit until recently on the inter-ministerial Committee looking at how to upgrade the digital services right across the country.

It is clear that Ofcom is taking its responsibilities very seriously, both to report on the number of premises that are connected and to tighten up on some of the issues where broadband companies advertise the maximum speed a customer might ever get if connected rather than the average speed. Ofcom is a very good regulator under Ms White’s chairmanship and it is absolutely stepping up to the plate.

I am afraid that I cannot support the amendment or the new clause because they are stuck in the past, looking at how we push out a good solution rather than empowering consumers to pull through the best solution that works for them. That solution might look very different in my constituency of Devizes from how it might in Cheshire or the highlands of Scotland. We have made decent progress but it is not far enough. I applaud the Government for bringing forward both the USO as an underlying obligation and the flexibility to amend that as technology changes.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I rise to support the amendments under discussion and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley for an excellent speech and for leading the debate, particularly on amendment 82.

I want to ask this of the Committee. Do we want to be ambitious? For me, this is about ambition. Do we want an economy that has the nuts and bolts, the things we require, to make it fit for the 21st century and the challenges it is already throwing up? Do we want our tech and creative industries, such as those that operate in my constituency of Bristol West, to be able to perform their functions, or do we want them to move away?

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Amendment 82 would ensure that we assess whether we are meeting our obligation and, if possible, going beyond it. It would be wonderful if the assessments were carried out and it was found that we were exceeding the USO, but we will not know unless there is a requirement to assess, so the annual report that my hon. Friend has requested is a good plan. I disagree with the hon. Member for Devizes, although I know her constituency well. I would like there to be a push factor for her constituency as well as a pull factor. Yes, constituents will want to make their own choices, but if good, high-quality reports are laid before Parliament, we parliamentarians will be able to support our constituents and they will be helped to make good choices.

[Claire Perry]

If the hon. Lady knows my beautiful constituency, she is always welcome to come and have a cup of coffee and admire it. The last time it was anything other than Conservative was 1921, so she is welcome to visit but not to campaign. Surely she, like me, welcomes Wiltshire Council’s commitment of taxpayers’ money to the programme and the fact that 91% of premises have now been passed by the BT programme. We are not there yet, but we have made enormous progress.

[The Chair]

Although the Committee is going really well and everyone is doing great, we are now straying slightly into Second Reading territory. Let us keep our comments focused on the amendments and new clause in hand and we will all get along swimmingly.

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[Matt Hancock]

I will look into that. I will be surprised if that does not happen already, but I will take it up.

[Claire Perry]

Will the Minister make representations that the threshold of 100 houses for the mandatory provision is perhaps a little high, certainly for those of us in rural constituencies?