Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill

Lord Hunt of Wirral Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

Wow. My Lords, may I first draw attention to my interests as set out in the register, in particular as a partner in the global commercial law firm DAC Beachcroft.

It is a privilege to follow my noble friend Lord Vaizey of Didcot, who has accomplished a tremendous amount in the area we are now discussing. I pay tribute to him. Whether or not I express some dissatisfaction with having to agree to cookies, which I think had something to do with him, I must acknowledge that, as he stressed, access to reliable, high-quality telecommunications infrastructure is now an essential service. This has never been felt more keenly than in the past two years, with so many of us being reliant on our mobile and broadband connections to work from home and connect with our loved ones.

The intention of the reformed code in 2017, as my noble friend Lady Harding of Winscombe explained, was to bring rents in the telecommunications sector down so that they would be more in line with other utilities such as gas, power and water. The explanation to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, as to why things went wrong is simply this: the market had become inflated and leasing arrangements ever more complex, leading to a significant and deleterious impact on improvements in connectivity. The code, as it stands, is just not working, so the proposed modifications in the Bill are to be greatly welcomed. I just want to concentrate on telecommunications infrastructure.

Under the current system it seems that, too often, operators and landowners are left with little choice but to argue over technical legal points of interpretation, which comes at a cost to both sides in terms of the financial and wider impact of dealing with formal litigation. I have to say that this is of great benefit to solicitors and professional advisers, but benefits no one else.

We have also seen, as my noble friend Lord Vaizey just pointed out, the emergence of large-scale and well-funded intermediary landowners, who he described as “land aggregators”, opportunistically buying up thousands of leases with a view to leveraging them for their own profit. A significant number of the technical legal arguments that seem to be emerging over the existing code are the direct consequence of their intervening influence as they seek now to resist the new valuation regime.

The emergence of this sector is all about profit and, as far as I can see, serves no useful social purpose whatever. I am reminded of the claims management companies—other noble Lords may also recollect them—that sought to create a compensation culture until they were effectively regulated. The market has created this situation, which others are seeking to exploit. Such behaviour undermined them and now undermines civility in society.

The purpose of these further modifications to the code, as I understand them, is to try to avoid these pointless skirmishes by simplifying and clarifying the statutory regime and by ensuring that every existing telecommunications installation has a clear and relatively straightforward road to renewal and a consistent basis of valuation. Without these modifications there is a real risk that existing sites will have to be removed and an application to rebuild them made, with all the consequent costs and delay of removal and reinstatement, as well, of course, as the break in coverage for the end users—in other words, unnecessary cost and inconvenience all round. That would make a mockery of the stated intention of the code and these modifications, which is to speed up connectivity.

I stand between my noble friend Lord Vaizey and the Minister, to whom a lot of tributes have been paid. I echo them, but the Minister now has a heavy responsibility to justify our faith in him. As he knows, I believe that further tweaks to the drafting may be needed to ensure that the intention to speed up connectivity is crystal clear in the Bill and, in due course, the Act. We must not miss this golden opportunity to get the code into good order so that the focus can rightly be on building world-class infrastructure and connectivity, as opposed to further endless litigation and delay. I therefore strongly support the Bill and look forward to participating in all its stages.