Copper Wire Telecoms

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Carmichael]

I absolutely do. By way of illustration, I received an email from a constituent in Walls, in the west side of Shetland, describing what life was like for him, his family and his neighbours during the six-day power outage last year. He said:

“Power was down…Internet was down…Heating was down (Our house has a gas cooker thank goodness)...The roads were impassable to cars for most of that period. 4x4 pick-ups could get through latterly into the week…The local shop was closed because it needed power to price items…Advice from the emergency services was that in the event of an emergency we were to wave down a passing police car. (This rather desperate advice was pretty hopeless, but more hopeless given road condition)…I need to emphasise that during this week an analogue phone with self-powered phone line was THE critical means of external contact with the outside world other than listening to the news on a battery-powered transistor radio.”

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I am interested in my right hon. Friend’s point about the passing police car; we have precisely six police officers in the entire vast county of Sutherland. Does he agree that in a constituency such as mine, the distances are so vast and the time it takes for the emergency services—an ambulance, a doctor or whatever—to get to where they need to be is so long that any delay in getting the call through because of what he describes is unacceptable?

[Mr Carmichael]

It is absolutely unacceptable, because it would be unacceptable to people living in a town or a city, and if it is unacceptable to them, surely it must be unacceptable to those of us who live outside the major conurbations.

Alongside my Scottish Parliament colleagues, I run regular digital forums. They started originally to raise issues relating to the transfer from analogue to digital television—we have been going that long—and they have morphed over the years to deal with concerns about broadband, superfast broadband and mobile connectivity. We held two such sessions in Kirkwall and Lerwick just last month, which representatives from EE, BT, the Scottish Government’s digital team and other mobile companies attended either in person or online, and their inability to answer questions was remarkable. The people in the audience asked fairly basic questions about how the switchover would work and what it would mean for them, but the people on the panel just looked at each other blankly and shrugged. The companies have no proper understanding of the scale of the problem.

Ahead of this debate, we have received a number of briefings. I draw the attention of the House to the one from BT Group, which runs to two sides of A4—that is quite instructive in itself. It is, if I may say so, fairly heavy on assertion and light on evidence to back up the assertions. It explains that the change is inevitable, and we know that the copper network will have to be replaced eventually, but BT says that it

“will provide a better quality, more resilient service for the future.”

Well, it is that question of “more resilient” that I would query; and, again, I see nothing in the briefing that gives me particular comfort.

The briefing does deal with resilience. It says:

“In the event of a power outage, a back-up, resilient solution for Digital Voice will be required to remain connected.”

There’s a blinding statement of the obvious if ever I saw one. It goes on to say:

“We advise customers to use their mobile phone where possible, as the simplest way to remain connected.”

Well, a number of my constituents would love to use a mobile phone to stay connected, but for obvious reasons—which BT has been telling me for the past 20 years are too difficult to solve—they are unable to do so. Very often, getting a mobile signal requires them to go out of their house and down to the bottom of the garden because they will not get a signal inside the house. Doing that in the middle of winter, in the dark in a howling gale—I can tell you because I have done it—is not much fun. The briefing goes on to say:

“They typically have a longer battery life and calls to the emergency services can be made over any mobile network, including over 2G. Our battery back-up unit provides up to four hours of standby time and up to two hours of talk time to keep customers connected during a power outage. This is available free of charge to vulnerable customers and others may purchase one if they wish.”

Four hours of back-up time in a six-day power outage such as we had in Shetland really is not what we need. It concludes:

“For the very small proportion of customers (less than 1%), with insufficient mobile or broadband connectivity to make a call to the emergency services, we will continue to meet our commitments under the Telephony Universal Service Obligation (USO) to ensure they remain connected.”

That is a pretty good idea, but I suspect that many of those 1% of customers live some distance away from the person who wrote that briefing. It is remarkable that, despite the assertion, there is absolutely no indication of how that laudable aim will be met.

I had a much better briefing from Alice Mathewson, the development manager for North Yell Development Council. With Members’ indulgence, I will take a bit of extra time to read this into the record. Alice was at the digital forum in Lerwick, and she wrote:

“As you are aware I asked a direct question about this to all panel members at your digital forum in Lerwick last month, and no one could give any viable response to this. In addition, the lack of awareness from everyone on your panel was both quite telling and very frightening.

Our community is well used to power outages and disruptions caused by storms. However, the storms seen on our island in December 2022, which resulted in some areas being without electricity for four days, have reminded us of our vulnerability and the need to improve our resilience.

Coupled with electricity outage was severe snow and high winds. All communications on and to the island failed, including mobile and landline services, and travel to and within Yell came to a standstill. Whilst luckily there were no fatalities locally, there were a number of near misses particularly among the more vulnerable in our community, and a complete communications black out on the island, including landlines, resulted in difficulties undertaking welfare checks and an inability to put out any form of emergency response request.”

North Yell Development Council is taking this properly seriously. It is setting up a network of community hubs so that there will be places people can go where there will be warmth, food and whatever other support they need, and they will have connectivity through very high frequency radios. The briefing says:

“We intend to put VHF radios in these hubs in order to try and have some form of emergency communication for our communities. This will be limited in its scope and is a step back to a predigital age. However, it is at least some form of solution, which is more than was offered by anyone on your panel. It also will not help communities outwith our island.”

That, I suggest, gives a proper understanding of the scale of the challenge. It is light years away from what we have seen from the telecommunications companies.

There are particular concerns about availability for older people in these communities who rely on telecare services—for instance, pendants that they can press when they are in difficulty. My father, who is now living on his own at 92, has a little box that sits in the corner of the room, and just when it is least expected—at about 6 o’clock at night—a rather bossy voice booms around the room, saying, “Have you taken your pills yet?” These are examples of the ways in which we are able to help people who want to remain in their own home to do so, in communities like the one I represent. Without the availability of these services, we know what will happen. The families who live closer or elsewhere in the country will quietly, one by one, say, “Come on, you can’t continue to live here. You need to move into the town or come and live with us.” In that way, choices expected to be available to people in other communities are taken away from ours, which becomes denuded of people who want to remain there.

Finally, I get a steady trickle of complaints about one particular issue. I cannot yet say that this is a business practice, though it appears it may be, and we need to get to the truth: people tell me that they have had their analogue line switched to a digital line by BT, without being told what was happening and without proper consent being obtained. The undertakings we get from BT are in relation to vulnerable people and all people over 75. As I said, I cannot yet say that this practice is widespread, but I do see a trickle of these complaints coming in; my caseworkers deal with them and it causes me concern.