Digital Economy Bill

Debate between George Howarth and Rob Marris

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Programme motion No. 3: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 28th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I shall try to comply with your instructions. It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who made a powerful case for her amendments. She certainly has my support.

I shall try to be brief as I talk to a narrow and esoteric part of the Bill. Virgin Media has a workplace in my constituency that employs 250 people. The company has a particular concern which I shall take the liberty of connecting to new clause 27, because it is about the position before that measure could take effect. I am not arguing against new clause 27, which would provide individuals with the option of a voucher scheme that would empower them to take up an alternative solution. It has been tabled on the presumption that most individuals would be likely to choose the standard universal service order offering.

My argument is that in order for that proposal to be successful, there needs to be coverage in the first place to enable people to choose one option or the other. There are a number of obstacles in the way of that happening, and the Bill does not resolve the problem. Virgin Media argues that communications providers should, in effect, be treated the same as utility companies when it comes to being granted access rights or wayleaves from landowners to deploy their infrastructure on their land. The Government talk of broadband as a fourth utility, which generally is the case, but the code reform in the Bill is, in the words of Virgin Media, “a halfway house”.

Under the reforms as currently envisaged, broadband companies would face three drawbacks that water companies do not face and, as a result, higher deployment costs, which I shall say more about in a moment. The first drawback is that communications operators have to pay a rent for accessing land, whereas water companies do not. Instead, they have only to compensate landowners for any loss of value. Secondly, water companies have a right to net off any compensation that they pay with any increase in the value of the land resulting from the fact that sewerage is in place. Communications operators do not have that right, although in some cases they might seem to be carrying sewage of a different kind. Thirdly, water companies notify landowners of their intention to deploy by giving 42 days’ notice, whereas communications operators have to negotiate access with landowners who often have no particular incentive to grant it, which can cause huge delays.

[Rob Marris]

I have great sympathy with what my right hon. Friend is saying. We talk glibly about access to telephony being almost a human right in our country. Obviously we need water to live, and having telephony is not a physiological necessity, but in modern life telephony is a necessity. Some 40% of the Bill is contained in schedule 1, which runs to 60 pages and deals with issues relating to that raised by my right hon. Friend. Does he agree that there is a missed opportunity in schedule 1 of dealing with the particular issue that he raises?

[Mr Howarth]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing that out. Earlier today I waded through schedule 1, after which I was no wiser about its relevance to my argument. He, as a Member with a reputation for having an eye for the fine detail of legislation, will have spotted that in rather less time than it took me.

According to Virgin Media, it costs a communications service provider—Virgin Media or any other—150% more to put in infrastructure than it costs a water company, and 66% more than it costs an electricity company. I do not want to steal the thunder of the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Calum Kerr), although I condemn him roundly for not using new clause 27 as an opportunity to resolve the problem—that is not a criticism, really—but I ask the Minister to consider this problem before the Bill gets to the House of Lords. I have a handy amendment available if he wants one, but if he does not, I shall try to persuade somebody in another place to table it so that the issue can be more thoroughly debated there.

Assisted Dying (No. 2) Bill

Debate between George Howarth and Rob Marris

Friday 11th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Rob Marris]

No, I said I could not take any more interventions.

Let me quote from a report by Barbara Coombs Lee, published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, entitled “Oregon’s experience with aid in dying: findings from the death with dignity laboratory”. Barbara Coombs Lee declared no conflict of interest when she submitted that paper, although I have to tell Members that she is involved with Compassion & Choices in Denver Colorado. The paper was published in July 2014. I hope, Madam Deputy Speaker, in light of the need for evidence, that you will show me some latitude in quoting not at considerable length, but at a little more length than is usual. She says:

“The data set from a variety of sources confirms that those who complete an aid-in-dying request are equally divided between genders and mostly white, well educated, insured”—

this is the United States—

“and receiving hospice services. Several commentators who articulated concerns about the DWDA—

the Dying with Dignity Act or the Oregon Act—

“have publicly stated that their fears about abuse of the vulnerable have not materialized. One commented, ‘I was worried about people being pressured to do this. But these data confirm that the policy in Oregon is working. There is no evidence of abuse or coercion or misuse of the policy.”

Ten years after that Act had been in operation in Oregon, the University of Utah examined its operation and the data arising from it. I quote from it prudently again. The university

“found no evidence of heightened risk for the elderly, women, the uninsured, people with little education, the poor, the physically disabled or chronically ill, minors, people with psychiatric illnesses or racial or ethnic minorities. The only group disproportionately represented among aid-in-dying patients was people with AIDS.”

It continued:

“The executive director of the disability advocacy group, Disability Rights Oregon testified before the American Public Health Association in 2007 that he had no knowledge of any cases in Oregon to contradict the findings of that report.”

[Interruption.] One of my hon. Friends says from a sedentary position, “So it is about disabled people.” No, it is not about people with disabilities. However, I understand, and so did the author of this report, that there are concerns and that is why that evidence has been looked at, and I seek, as did the author of that report, to allay those concerns.

Lord George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has said:

“There is nothing sacred about suffering, nothing holy about agony, and individuals should not be obliged to endure it.”

I agree with him.

When we talk about choice, some hon. Members need reminding of section 1(4) of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, for which many Members present today, including me, voted. That subsection states:

“A person is not to be treated as unable to make a decision merely because he makes an unwise decision.”

We need to bear in mind that different people faced with the same set of circumstances on occasions make different choices, and at the moment the law in England and Wales has not got the balance right between protection and choice. My Bill would provide more protection, particularly for the living, and more choice. Most of those who would fulfil the criteria in the Bill will, for faith or other reasons, never choose an assisted death. I do not know whether I would, if I had a terminal illness and a prognosis of less than six months, but I and many others would find it comforting to know that the choice was available—to have the option of choosing a dignified and peaceful end at a time and place and in a manner of my own choosing at my own hand.

There has been a trend in our society, which I support, that if the exercise of a choice does not harm others, in a free society we should allow that choice.