Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th July 2021 Grand Committee

For the reasons I have set out, we cannot accept these amendments. I therefore ask noble Lords not to press them.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

I have received one request to speak after the Minister, from the noble Lord, Lord Fox.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

The Minister brought up the review, which was very clear that there are huge potential market failures within the security and resilience telecoms market, the reason being that security is not valued by the networks. It is other things, such as network connectivity and price, which are of maximum importance to those networks—things that might come under the word “anything”, for example.

Let us be clear about the four reasons given by the review that security is undervalued by networks: insufficient clarity on cyber standards and practices; insufficient incentives to internalise the costs and benefits of security; lack of commercial drivers, because consumers of telecoms services do not tend to place a high value on security; and the complexity of delivering, monitoring and enforcing contractual arrangements in relation to security. All four of those issues, which I think are driving the purpose of this Bill, involve the word “security”. Far from these amendments watering down the intent of the Bill, the Minister is watering it down herself by including the word “anything” and ignoring the word “security”. I do not expect her to accept these amendments now, but I would like the department to go away and think about this very carefully, because a catch-all Bill catches nothing.

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Amendments 3 to 6 not moved.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 7. Before I call the mover, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I will run through the speakers’ list, so that everyone is clear: the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, will be followed by the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, the noble Lord, Lord Fox, the noble Baronesses, Lady Merron and Lady Barran, and finally the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones.

Amendment 7

Moved by

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Grand Committee will now resume. I think we were just about concluding the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I might take that hint, but there is still a little bit of water to flow under the bridge.

The Minister knows that there is already a great deal of concern about both the regulations, which I have specified and gone through to some degree, and the forthcoming codes which we are assured will come out, so there is no doubt that the Government are fully aware of the providers’ concerns.

I thought the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, on the NCSC’s lack of involvement was very strong. That absolutely must be bolted into the Bill; it is fundamental in so many ways, and I do not think any of us really understands why that should not be bolted in.

I come on to the substance of what the Minister said: that using the negative procedure for the regulations was fine because we are not amending primary legislation. Do we now make a virtue of a non-Henry VIII power? Are the only powers that we think should now be subject to the affirmative procedure Henry VIII powers? We have moved some way. I am clearly getting far too long in the tooth to see those sorts of arguments being made by Ministers, especially when it is a matter of scrabbling around to keep the Bill as it is. I understand the “not invented here” principle, but it is a bit depressing to see it when the merits of a case are so strong.

The other time-old argument is “Don’t worry your pretty little heads; these are technical regulations. Parliamentarians can’t have too much oversight of a technical regulation—they might not understand it. They might get confused and lose sleep.” I do not know what the arguments are, but they are clearly bogus. We should go for the affirmative, and someone with the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby—I am sorry to see he is not here—as a Deputy Speaker in the Commons knows full well that that is the appropriate form.

The words “legislative effect”, which the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, emphasised, as I do, are important in this context, and were raised by the Delegated Powers Committee. On this point about having no delay, regulations needing to be updated, and a code of practice needing to be flexible and updated, we have seen that this Government can pass Covid-19 regulations in a blink; they can do virtually anything they feel like at the drop of a hat and nobody says boo to a goose, so I do not think that is a very useful argument.

The other point the Minister made was that the code needs to be understood by its audience. Again, that is a “Don’t worry your pretty little head” argument—“Parliamentarians will not understand the code—it is not relevant to them; only the providers need to worry about it.” But providers are worried about the code, and they would be much reassured if they saw that there was proper scrutiny.

I am really sorry to say that I did not even see a chink of daylight in that group, sadly. I hope that we can move a bit further as the Bill progresses but, in the meantime, with great disappointment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Grand Committee is resumed—third time lucky. I call the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I hope I am demonstrating the agility of which the Minister is so fond. As I said earlier in respect of the judicial commissioner, these amendments provide a ready-made mechanism for oversight concerning the proportionality and appropriateness of any measures in the regulations and codes. Taken together, Amendments 9 and 19, would require the Secretary of State to take into account the advice of the technical advisory board—and insert a new clause after Clause 14—and that of a judicial commissioner appointed under the 2016 Act. We have gone a little further in specifying the make-up of the technical advisory board, but we are clearly on the same page as the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, with her Amendment 8.