Digital Economy Bill

Lord Borwick Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Borwick (Con)]

My Lords, first, I declare an interest as a trustee of long standing of the Ewing Foundation for deaf children, a charity that helps deaf children to make the most of the technology that can help them in schools.

I sympathise with my noble friend the Minister in having to deal with the complex interface between legislation and technology, especially as technology is changing so fast. For example, a lot of attention will focus on Part 3 of the Bill, on the subject of online pornography, but I feel that noble Lords who, like me, depend on teenage children or grandchildren to set up a new television will fail if they believe that they can write legislation that makes it impossible for teenagers to access whatever they want online. Certainly, Part 3 will go some way to making it more difficult for tech-savvy teenagers to access such material, and that is to be applauded, but I do not doubt that many noble Lords will propose amendments to attempt to make such access impossible, rather than just difficult. Such amendments may only reduce the already low level of respect teenagers have for the law in general. Surely the answer is education, as many noble Lords have said, rather than technical prohibitions.

The Bill deals with sectors with rapidly changing technology. That means it will soon be out of date, so there is, in this case, a good argument for regularly reviewing not only its effects—such as the possible increase in credit card fraud as a result of Part 3—and the number of dwellings with superfast internet access, but the creation of new technologies that will make existing technologies obsolete.

I will be attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas between 4 and 7 January 2017. It is said to be the largest exhibition of any kind in the world, and I should pay tribute to the far-sighted and high-tech usual channels for making sure that the House of Lords will not be sitting between those dates. I have no doubt that I will see more advanced methods of accessing the internet than copper wires or even fibre optics. I have read reports about, and heard lectures on, low-flying satellites and high-flying balloons—known, bizarrely, as Project Loon—that will continuously transmit wi-fi-type signals to eliminate not-spots. That would enable the isolated shepherd’s hut in the highlands of Scotland to get better coverage than we do in central London, and certainly better signals than we get in the Palace of Westminster. If such technology exists, is it right that the broadband universal service obligation should continue indefinitely? Certainly this obligation is needed now in the short term, but we have to write legislation that will last.

The lives of all of us have been changed by new forms of communication. I have no doubt that noble Lords of 50 years ago would have been incredulous at the communication that comes to today’s noble Lords by texts and emails. But much more important are the changes to communication that technology has brought for those with sensory disabilities, enabling their greater connection with the outside world.

Part of the change has raised the importance of literacy in the lives of deaf people. Text phones and email have radically improved the opportunities for communication. Indeed, the use of technology masks many a disability and can offer independence and equality. Noble Lords will know that deaf children use a lot of equipment based on the 2.40 to 2.48 gigahertz frequency. Many deaf people are concerned that the tests being undertaken by Ofcom before it sells the adjacent frequency—mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Fox—will be insufficient. These frequencies are vital for connecting deaf people to society generally.

A simple acceleration of this process of connectivity could come from the subject raised in another place—regulating to ensure that all television programmes carry subtitles. In 2003, I gather, Parliament gave people with hearing loss equal access through subtitling on analogue TV. However, how we watch TV has changed. There is no legislation to provide subtitles for catch-up, video on demand and streaming, so the legislation lags far behind the technology at the moment.

TV remains one of our strongest cultural focal points, and frustration and social isolation can occur when people are excluded from programmes that their friends, families and colleagues all enjoy. Most broadcast programmes do carry subtitles, but the way we watch television nowadays, with catch-up TV and minority channels, makes it desirable that this is more widespread. It is necessary to consider how to ensure greater access. I am grateful for the help of the National Deaf Children’s Society and Action on Hearing Loss, which briefed me on this subject. Will the Minister agree to meet me and his Bill team to discuss the commitment that an amendment will be brought into this House to achieve this?

Many people who use subtitles on TV programmes are not diagnosed as deaf—not least those whose problem may be one of processing language, rather than hearing sounds, as well as those confounded by sound itself. Even those watching the post-match analysis on a TV in a noisy bar or around a family TV may use subtitles to accompany the pictures. So a wider use of subtitles will help ease the very serious problem of isolation that often accompanies any form of disability.

Of course, much more can be done to alleviate that feeling of isolation. As well as extended use of subtitles and much better internet connections from sources we have not yet heard of, things like autonomous vehicles will connect those with disabilities with the rest of the world like never before. The common theme here is technology. So I hope that, as the Bill is debated, we will be mindful that we should facilitate technological progress, rather than slow it down.