Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Lord Livermore Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)]

I follow a couple of points made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I am chairman of the residents’ association of a block of flats in Camden, London, and I mentioned all this to a meeting of the residents. Of course, on these occasions one gets a lot of relevant feedback and a lot of feed- back that is not relevant, but there is quite a lot of concern about whether HMG have had the time, or will make available the time, to check with the National Organisation of Residents Associations or to understand the nature of a typical tenant on a lease of, let us say, 99 or 125 years. There is a ground landlord, a managing agent, a leaseholder and an attempt to liaise between the tenants, all of whom may have broadly the same interest, but they are—to say the least—very confused indeed when it comes to compensation and how things get held up. It is a bit of a nightmare.

Can the Minister give an assurance that, although we are at this stage of the Bill, the Government can give Parliament a more comprehensive account of the feedback they have got and the degree to which they have buy-in from these various interests?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

My Lords, we support this attempt to probe the Government on the practical implications of the compensation provisions laid out in new paragraph 27H. Not qualifying the types of losses or damages that are subject to compensation seems a curious choice when amendments to simplify processes are frequently resisted on the basis that, while often cumbersome, legislation needs to set clear parameters for the processes it establishes. This is not a concern that has been raised directly with us, but it seems a recipe for potential bad blood between lessees and operators. While there will inevitably be some scrapes along the way, we need to ensure as harmonious a relationship as possible.

I hope the Minister will be able to point to provisions elsewhere in the parent Act, or to established precedents, to assure us and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that this has been fully considered and is not likely to become an issue once the new measures are operational.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Fox, for tabling this amendment. As your Lordships have heard, this amendment seeks to test our thinking on the types of damage for which compensation will be paid and for which operators will be held liable and—as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned— to establish whether this could lead to any delays in implementation on the part of operators.

This amendment would mean that the courts would be able to award compensation only in situations in which a landowner is able to demonstrate a direct loss. I understand that the amendment aims to limit the scope, and in turn the extent, of compensation that may be paid by an operator in respect of loss or damage sustained by them. I understand that intention and the concerns that underlie it. However, I do not think that those concerns are founded in this case, and I will try to set out the reasons for that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

There have been some excellent speeches in this debate and I fully support the amendment moved so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Fox. We are debating matters of fundamental political importance, and I disagree with the suggestion of the noble Baroness who said that this can all be left to regulators. The fact is that in these areas far too much has been left to regulators. These are questions of politics and whether Ministers are really driving progress. That is why I think that regular reports to Parliament are a very good idea.

When listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, I have felt that the Bill has been presented to us as a sort of trifling or very minor measure, but in fact it is on a huge subject. In the Conservative manifesto, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, will confirm in his concluding remarks, the Government made a very bold commitment to full fibre and gigabit-capable broadband for every home and business by 2025. It would be good if the Minister could reaffirm that that is indeed the Government’s commitment. The case for it has grown: we saw in the general election the cry from the left-behind areas of the country. They put their trust in Mr Johnson because he said that he would look after them. It is absolutely essential to the fostering of new enterprise in, for instance, west Cumbria, where I live, that we have top-class, gigabit-capable broadband. The question is: will we get it? It is a big political question and the Government have to satisfy us that they will deliver on those promises.

The Covid crisis has made the question of access to broadband also a fundamental question of equality. I am struck by a lot of the research into the damage to children’s opportunities being done by schools being closed. Some of the greatest damage is where families do not have access to broadband and where schools are not providing teaching online, yet those inequalities could be addressed by a vigorous Government who were prepared to make sure that the infrastructure was available to everybody.

I support this legislation, which gives the service providers due rights over landlords. I am worried that it is not enough. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, descended into lots of verbiage—if I might put it so crudely—about the balance of powers in this Bill, which makes me think that, actually, it does not really give the service providers what they need to aggressively provide a more universal service. We cannot put obligations on providers to provide a universal service unless they have the muscle to be able to do it.

In the Conservative manifesto, not only was £5 billion of public funding promised to promote these digital objectives, but

“a raft of legislative changes to accelerate progress”

will be introduced. I suppose this Bill is one of those legislative changes. We know we have got the telecoms security Bill coming later this year, and we know that there is a furious debate going on in government about what it should say. How much are those debates about the telecoms security Bill going to delay the 2025 objective? The Government should be straight with the electorate about the trade-offs here. We need an indication in the Bill of how far it is going towards this raft of legislative changes to produce great progress, what other legislative changes are going to be proposed, and on what timescale. If this is a trifling measure, what is the big measure that is going to produce the results?

I very much support this amendment and look forward to the Minister’s reply, because I want to see clear commitment to action that will be reported on to Parliament on a regular basis.

[Lord Livermore]

My Lords, as we have heard, Amendment 21 would introduce a review requirement relating to progress on the Government’s stated target of achieving universal access to gigabit broadband by 2025. I hope the Minister will be able to make a clear commitment to progress reports, either from his department or from Ofcom. While we do get estimates of statistics from the latter, there must be some mechanism for understanding how the Government aim to address any shortcomings.

Furthermore, the view of the committee this afternoon seems very clear that more needs to be done, and we are certainly sympathetic to the idea of an amendment such as that suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Fox. Amendment 22 seeks to upgrade one of the delegated powers in the Bill to the affirmative procedure. The 12th report of our Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee did not flag this power as problematic, but it would nevertheless be helpful if the Minister could outline the process that these regulations will be subject to prior to their publication and entry into force.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this lively and wide-ranging debate. A number of issues of a Second Reading type were raised, which is quite understandable given the practical restrictions on noble Lords being present at Second Reading. I will attempt to address those briefly before turning to the amendments, but I am sure that my noble friend Lady Barran will be happy to write with further details if they are still needed afterwards.

On security, I am afraid I cannot give the noble Lord, Lord Fox, a specific date for the introduction of the telecoms security Bill any more than we could earlier in Committee. However, I can certainly reassure him that we understand the importance of that issue, and of turning to it in a timely manner. However, on security issues more broadly, the National Cyber Security Centre is considering what the impact of the additional sanctions placed on Huawei by the United States Government might be. Moreover, in the first Committee sitting, my noble friend Lady Barran committed to meeting certain noble Lords with Ministers from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office specifically with regard to this issue of high-risk vendors and human rights, and I am sure that she would be very happy for the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and others to join if they wished.