Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Wednesday 29th June 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

19: After Clause 60, insert the following new Clause—
“Requirement for operators to notify emergency service sites prior to upgrading or sharing apparatus
(1) The electronic communications code is amended as follows.(2) In paragraph 17, in sub-paragraph (1), for the words “sub-paragraphs (2) and (3)” substitute “sub-paragraphs (2), (3) and (4A)”.(3) After sub-paragraph (4) insert—“(4A) The third condition is that, where a site is provided by an emergency service, before the beginning of the period of 21 days, ending with the day on which the main operator begins to upgrade the electronic communications apparatus or (as the case may be) share its use, the main operator provides written notice to the site provider.””Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would require operators with agreements under the code that are not subsisting agreements to provide written notice to site providers that are an emergency service in advance of apparatus being upgraded or shared. This would allow relevant emergency services to plan around service outages or other forms of disruption.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak on behalf of my noble friend Lady Merron, who has tabled this amendment. The proposed new clause in Amendment 19 would

“require operators with agreements under the code that are not subsisting agreements to provide written notice to site providers that are an emergency service in advance of apparatus being upgraded or shared”.

This would obviously allow “relevant emergency services” to plan better around things such as

“service outages or other forms of disruption.”

We have tabled this amendment because some hospitals have reported instances where telecoms engineers have arrived to inspect or upgrade equipment, having provided little or no notice of their visit or the need to turn broadband and other data connections off for its duration. As I am sure the Minister will be aware, this amendment was tabled in the Commons and, at that point, the Government insisted that the clarification was unnecessary. The Minister, Julia Lopez, said that paragraph 17 rights authorise a visit only where there is no adverse impact, which probably brings us back to earlier debates.

For visits that go beyond paragraph 17 rights, the Government insist that operators need to obtain permission in advance or potentially face legal repercussions. However, hospitals and other emergency services have far more important things to do than pursue complaints and court orders while they are running important services. The Minister also claimed that introducing this clarification

“would undermine the policy intention of the rights”.—[Official Report, Commons, Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill Committee, 22/3/22; col. 121.]

Perhaps the Minister can outline exactly how.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

If my noble friend will permit, I will come to the points she raises on consultation shortly.

Clause 72 will allow the Secretary of State to amend the Communications (Access to Infrastructure) Regulations 2016. Sharing infrastructure in the concentration of gigabit-capable networks can greatly reduce the cost and increase the pace of deploying networks, and can reduce the need to dig up streets, preventing unnecessary disruption to the local population and reducing carbon emissions. The 2016 regulations enable sharing of information about access to physical infrastructure across the utility, transport and communications sectors. They also include the right to access that infrastructure on fair and reasonable commercial terms and conditions. The Government published our response to the call for evidence on a review of these regulations last year. We set out that there may be some areas where they could be made easier to use and to understand.

In addition, we said we would legislate to allow future changes to the regulations via secondary legislation rather than relying on primary legislation. That legislation would be subject to further consultation with Ofcom and other appropriate parties. To expand on that a little, Clause 72 makes clear that

“the Secretary of State must consult … OFCOM; … such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate”

before making such regulations. I cannot conceive of a set of circumstances where the landowner would not be one of the other persons that the Secretary of State considers appropriate—obviously, if I have that wrong I will write to noble Lords. In addition, any regulations made using this power will still be scrutinised as part of the affirmative resolution procedure. Clause 72 therefore grants to the Secretary of State a narrow power to make provision, through regulations, conferring rights on network providers in relation to infrastructure for the purpose of developing communications networks. These provisions include the power to amend, revoke or replace the 2016 regulations.

Finally, my noble friend Lord Vaizey raised some useful points about operator behaviour, which I think we may discuss in more detail in later amendments in group 6 on the Ofcom code of practice. I will leave it till then to address those, if that is acceptable.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am somewhat reluctant to let this go, I must confess. The emergency services in this country have a very difficult job to do, and I think they require better treatment than this.

I am not satisfied with the noble Lord’s explanation. I can envisage a time when an engineer turns up on the basic premise that the task they have to complete is smallish, but it turns out to be a rather larger problem—a bit like when you get a plumber in and they suddenly discover that there is something more fundamentally wrong with your boiler than the dial not working properly, and that it needs repressurising and a part needs to be brought up. This is a practical consideration, as it could cause considerable disruption to a service.

I was thinking of something that recently happened quite close to where I live. The road immediately in front of the local fire station was dug up; I cannot believe that the highways authority was not in contact with the fire station concerned, but I am not entirely sure that it was. I know that the people working in the fire station were put out for the period of time in which their ability freely to come and go in an emergency situation was seriously impacted.

For the purposes of Committee, I will withdraw this amendment, but the Government need to give this further thought. These behaviours can be highly disruptive. They can impact quite adversely on people’s personal security and safety; obviously, we want to make sure that there is a reasonably sensible way for providers to exercise their rights to repair, renew and so on, but we need to get the balance right and the Government need to think about this again. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 19.

Amendment 19 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Northbrook (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly support the clause stand part amendment and the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. They appear entirely sensible, especially the restricting of rent reductions to the date on which a court order is made, rather than being retrospective. Like the noble Earl, Lord Devon, I am not a lackey of APWireless and have done my own negotiations with my solicitors on my contract, which were far from amicable.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be very brief. In general, I support the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. The arguments on retrospectivity, which the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, addressed, are sound; it surely cannot be right that we have a change that will penalise landlords in the way this does. A reform could lead to a sudden and significant sum of money being owed to telecoms operators by site providers. Some of those who provide sites could even end up in a form of bankruptcy, particularly if courts make a decision that goes back to a point at which the notice was served. Large sums of money will be involved.

Amendment 34, which we have signed, would ensure that interim rent payments could not be backdated to that point, prior to a court order being obtained. That would mitigate the risks of backdated payments causing site providers severe or significant financial difficulties. That is a reasonable and fair principle which should find its way into this legislation. We support the other amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in generality as well.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, even more briefly, the Minister said in responding to the last group that the Government are clear that the cost of rent is too high and the purpose is to drive it down. In different comments, he stated that he felt these costs will eventually find their way to the consumer—I doubt that, but time will tell. What is the purpose of the retrospectivity and who will benefit? When will I receive my refund on my mobile phone bill for the retrospective repayment of this money? The answer is that I will not, so who will benefit from this and why are the Government causing it to happen?