Broadband: Communications Committee Report

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, first, I declare an interest as a former member of Huawei International’s advisory committee. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, and his thoughtful speech. He clearly needs to join the Communications Committee.

The economic and cultural benefits of broadband are considerable, as stated by my noble friend Lord Inglewood, who was our tireless chairman during this inquiry and who continues to be tireless on further inquiries. It was a pleasure to serve under him on the committee. I congratulate him on his lucid introduction to what is a very complicated subject.

Connecting Communities, the study by Dr Tim Williams, describes in a light-hearted and amusing way the various activities that now can be conducted. He can do these, as he says in the study, all before breakfast from my living room in Hackney. He puts it in graphic ways:

“Organise a street party with people I’ve never actually talked to before”;

“Libel fellow professionals and other enemies”;

“Complain bitterly about potholes in Birmingham”;

“Watch councillors in Kent make budget-decisions live, whether wisely or not”;

“Campaign against new development anywhere”;

“Petition, in an act of ‘crowd sourcing’, national government to change the law”;

and finally, an example that demonstrates the age of this document:

“Participate in the worldwide community of long-suffering Welsh rugby supporters”.

You could not write that now.

The internet, broadband, has become indispensible for both private and public use. In certain areas there has been a great acceleration in its use, not least in the area of entertainment, where increasingly over broadband people access iPlayer, YouView, Netflix, Lovefilm and so on. Smartphones and tablets have made us demand better, faster and more reliable broadband, whether fixed line, wi-fi or mobile. However, the key aspect that the Communications Committee addresses, as my noble friend made clear, is that it is important that no one should be left out of getting the benefits of broadband.

I welcome an early success for the Secretary of State in her new role as regards the Government’s securing the consent of the EU for state aid requirements in their investment of £530 million in rural broadband deployment last November. However, of the two preferred bidders in the government scheme, only BT—as again mentioned by my noble friend—has received any money so far. However, it seems that currently some 7.5 million taxpayers are still not online. Much of the rollout of the new services will cater for them in the plan to reach 90% of homes with 24 megabits per second or greater. This is all designed, in the words of the previous Minister, to create the best superfast broadband network in Europe. However, the key question is increasingly: can we provide adequate services for the last 10% who not receive superfast broadband? Will the target of at least 2 megabits per second be enough for them? Are we creating a digital divide?

Broadband is clearly vital for communities, but even with mainstream business the temptation to be self-congratulatory should be resisted. As my noble friend mentioned, we should look at last year’s IoD survey of internet infrastructure. I welcome provisions in the Growth and Infrastructure Bill, as recommended by the Communications Committee, to ensure faster broadband infrastructure rollout with fewer planning restrictions for five years, subject to new guidelines agreed between local authorities and the digital stakeholders’ group. I also welcome the Government’s acknowledgement that speed is not the only factor; choice, coverage and price are important, too. There is also the Law Commission review of the Electronic Communications Code. When will that come to fruition?

I welcome those developments. That said, there is a difference of philosophy between the Government’s vision and the committee’s recommendations. As my noble friend made clear, the Communications Committee would prefer to focus on open access fibre optic hubs initially—cabinets, essentially—which we believe would have the best chance of eliminating any digital divide and delivering the final 10% more effectively through attracting innovative solutions to delivering higher broadband speeds to rural areas. Network access conditions do not by themselves go far enough. The Government, in their response, talk about the expectation that consumers will be able to benefit from competitors deploying competing networks using BT’s ducts and poles, but this is only an expectation. What obliges the opening up? Likewise, we believe that the opening up of dark fibre is crucial and that the adoption of common standards to allow bespoke local solutions should be adopted.

Secondly, there is the question of whether Ofcom should have the additional duty given to it of ensuring the efficient utilisation of existing capacity to provide affordable access to wholesale and retail connectivity. Is that not exactly what Ofcom should exist to ensure?

Thirdly, there are the deficiencies in the procedures for the Rural Community Broadband Fund, particularly the requirement to raise 50% of the funds up front. Surely this is a serious criticism, and communities are finding it difficult to raise the necessary funds.

Now, after the publication of the report, we see that the Government have allocated a further £300 million to be spent after 2015 on broadband infrastructure. The recent Carnegie UK Trust paper, Going the Last Mile, discusses a number of options for how this should be best spent. The options include superfast broadband rollout to the final 10%, promotion of the community enterprise approach, the provision of greater infrastructure competition and the attraction of additional investments, all of these solutions using specialist investment intermediaries.

Have the Government yet formulated how this expenditure will be allocated? Can the Minister reply on that? I look forward generally to the Government’s reply.