Superfast Broadband (Urban Areas)

Debate between Mike Freer and Mark Field

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mark Field]

That concern has certainly been put to me by many of my constituents as well. In today’s debate, I am trying to focus on what the Government might do, given their ambitious programme, which, as I said, has made some real headway in relatively depopulated, rural parts of the UK, but which has left behind, ironically, the sorts of areas that the hon. Lady and I represent.

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

In my constituency, we have an area called a “notspot”, in that it is a group of houses at the end of the copper line, and the speed degrades the further away people get from the exchange. In terms of asking what the Government can do, does my hon. Friend agree that we need a proper investigation into what the cause is? He is being told that there is a lack of demand, but when I met BT, I was told that BT cannot find the location to put the boxes on the pavement, so we are being misled. Does he agree that the Government need to get a grip on why suppliers cannot supply in London?

[Mark Field]

I very much agree with that. I confess that when I was doing the research, I assumed that the word “notspot” was a typographical error. I then recognised exactly what was being suggested, which my hon. Friend has rightly pointed out.

Yes, there is a particular problem for London. London is a wonderful capital to live in, but it is an absurdity that, within a few hundred yards or even less of first-rate digital broadband, individuals should find they have difficulties. Of course, we all take for granted that we will have instant access to the internet—I recall going on a holiday only 10 years ago to a distant part of Africa and the frustration one felt about the situation. Of course, we recognise that back in the 1980s and 1990s, these things did take a hell of a long time to get up and running, and all of us as consumers now have expectations that are very different from those of the past. Those expectations will only become greater as time goes by.

It strikes me that only the sort of thinking to which hon. Members have referred will enable London to continue to compete effectively on the global stage and meet the future bandwidth demands of all its citizens. My seat suffers particularly from the technology divide and it is frustrating to receive regular reports from constituents that they are caught between the cheaper, slower, copper broadband and the unaffordable leased lines. Many SMEs, in keeping with current business practice and as a way of making economies in what remains a difficult economic environment, use cloud-based services. Those services need, as an absolute essential, faster and reliable connections and the failure to provide sufficient connectivity is a fundamental issue undermining our global competitiveness.

Even the much politically celebrated success that is Tech City—based, sadly, just outside my constituency, around the Old street roundabout—is having difficulties getting the broadband speeds it needs to continue to thrive and grow. I know that those concerns are shared by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch, who has the good fortune to have Tech City in her patch. I know that in the past, she has called for a comprehensive review of superfast broadband provision.

Closer to home here in Westminster, the West End partnership, which brings together public and private sector stakeholders in central London, has identified the poor broadband service as the single biggest threat to London’s international competitiveness. It puts at risk the continued attraction of investors and the continued growth of the digital, media, tech and creative sector, which has provided some quarter of a million jobs in central London alone.

London has the biggest concentration of digital businesses in Europe, with some 23,000 firms and over 390,000 employees, according to a Greater London authority study of two years ago; I suspect that those figures may underestimate the reality today. However, economic growth in the sector has not increased relative to other sectors in the past decade. That is likely to relate to the fact that broadband speeds are lower in London than in some of our European rivals and connection is generally of a lower standard than that available to a number of our Asian competitors.

City of London (Various Powers) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Mike Freer and Mark Field

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

The Bill makes relatively small but important changes to controls on street trading in the City of London, and liberalises controls to enable temporary licences so that street trading can take place outside the one area in which it is currently permitted—Middlesex street, commonly known as Petticoat lane. It will also enable ice cream and similar confectionary to be sold outside food premises—at least when the weather is slightly more conducive than it is at the moment to people wanting to buy such things.

I am pleased to report that since Second Reading in February, the last remaining issue concerning the services directive has been resolved, and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has no further objection to the measure. Indeed, BIS has accepted that the City of London Corporation’s justification for clause 9, which sets out how ice cream may be sold outside food premises, provides reasonable grounds that the clause is compliant with the EU services directive.

A number of important amendments were made to the Bill in an Unopposed Bill Committee—which I believe you chaired, Mr Deputy Speaker—in response to points made during a full Second Reading debate on provisions related to the sale of ice cream. The substantive amendments have been the subject of letters from the City of London Corporation to my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and for Shipley (Philip Davies), and I hope they provide reassurance on those points—the absence of my hon. Friends from the House today is perhaps a sign that silence is golden on that matter.

The amendments are to provisions inserted into the City of London (Various Powers) Act 1987 by clause 7(2), and I shall briefly outline their effect. The first amendment makes a change to new section 16A(1), which sets out preconditions for the exercise of the power to seize goods or vehicles in the City of London. Concern was expressed on Second Reading by my hon. Friends that the “reasonable suspicion” test was too subjective and laid too low and narrow a bar as a test. The requirement for reasonable suspicion that a person has committed a street trading offence has therefore been amended to one of reasonable belief. The new test will narrow the circumstances in which that power can be exercised, and will make it easier to claim compensation when proceedings are not brought or fail to result in a conviction.

On Second Reading my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley noted an apparent contradiction between the requirement in paragraph (c) of proposed new section 16B(4) for the City of London Corporation to obtain the best possible price that can reasonably be obtained for items it disposes of following a seizure, and the entitlement in paragraph (a) of that subsection, as presented on Second Reading, for the corporation to dispose of such items in any way it sees fit. As presented, the power of sale arose when the court made an award of costs that had not been complied with. To avoid any suggestion that the provision would justify the City of London Corporation in not seeking the best possible price, the reference in paragraph (a) to the corporation’s entitlement to dispose of items

“in any way it sees fit”

has been removed.

On Second Reading, my hon. Friends also raised new section 16B(6), which provides exceptions to the requirement for a seized ice cream van to be returned to the owner within three days of a request being made to the City of London Corporation. Objection was made to two of those three exceptions—first, where the owner is being prosecuted for a previous alleged street trading offence, and, secondly, where the vehicle has been used for a previous or alleged offence—as they were felt to conflict with the presumption of innocence. In recognition of that heartfelt concern, both those exceptions have been removed from the Bill. There is now only one exception—which the hon. Member for Christchurch felt to be justified—and arises when the owner of the vehicle has been convicted of a street trading offence within three years of the vehicle’s seizure.

The seizure of perishable goods is provided for in new section 16E. This reflects the current position in the rest of the metropolis of London. It was suggested on Second Reading that the seizure of such goods would be unfair. It is likely, perhaps inevitable, that if an ice-cream van is seized it will contain some perishables. The Bill was previously silent on how the corporation would look after any perishable goods. It now contains new section 16E(3), which imposes an obligation on the corporation to store any goods at an appropriate temperature.

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

I have shepherded one of these Bills through Parliament, so I gently suggest to my hon. Friend that—given that the Bill’s opponents are not here—we move on and give the Bill a Third Reading.

[Mark Field]

I take my hon. Friend’s point, but I have spoken to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and his absence is not one of omission—more a recognition that the changes that have been made are in keeping with the points he made on Second Reading and in subsequent debates.

Two new sections were added in Committee. The first, new section 16H, provides for the Corporation to publish on its website information about the street trading regime in the City so that street traders and potential traders can readily access the rules and their enforcement. The second, new section 16I, requires the corporation to ensure that any officer authorised to exercise seizure or fixed penalty powers under the Bill receives adequate training. Both requirements reflect what the corporation already practises, but these have been made explicit statutory requirements.

My hon. Friends have rightly been concerned to test the necessity for any increase in powers and to ensure that there are adequate safeguards. I hope that they feel that the City’s response meets their concerns and strikes the right balance between street-trading activities and effective administrative and enforcement processes.

The measure is intended to bring some additional enterprise to the City of London—a place I have always regarded as the heart of enterprise for our nation—to add to the vitality which is an essential element of its attraction. The provision for temporary street licences will be a useful way to add to the appeal of seasonal and commemorative events in the City. The ability to license the sale of ice cream and other confectionery outside food premises will, at least in warmer seasons, be welcomed by the increasing number of visitors to the Square Mile and add to its general ambience. I therefore hope the Bill will be allowed to pass today.

London Local Authorities Bill [Lords] (By Order)

Debate between Mike Freer and Mark Field

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, but if he wants to deal with the people who cause the litter, he should support the clause that requires people to supply their name and address when fixed penalty notices are being served. This is a pincer movement, because one provision deals with those who operate the businesses that generate the litter and the other clause deals with those who drop it, and therefore both sides of the argument are covered. The cost of collecting litter in London runs to millions of pounds and it falls on the innocent taxpayer, so either the businesses have to be more responsible or the individuals who cause the litter have to be prosecuted. Either way, the Bill provides the necessary regulations to allow the London councils to get on with it.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I have sympathy with the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), because we do not want to have a complicated provision that penalises everybody when, often, the actions of an irresponsibility minority are to blame. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) agree that some of the more innovative work has been undertaken in the City of Westminster, although not exclusively there, and that it has aimed at ensuring that as part of a licensing arrangement some of these fast-food outlets must have full-time staff employed outside their establishment—within about 100 yards of it—to ensure that litter is not disposed of there? That takes place at the Oxford street McDonald’s, but I am sure that it is not the only establishment where such an arrangement is in place. I hope that such an approach would get around the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley. That sort of voluntary arrangement made at the outset should be encouraged.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Freer]

I am sure that the jam made by the women’s institute in Shipley is a fine product. The system with one, two, three, four and five stars is relatively understandable. Most people understand: five stars good; one star bad. My hon. Friend understands a three-star or five-star rating on a hotel, but I suspect that he does not know the mechanics of how that star rating was awarded. If he wants to understand just how the gradings have been arrived at, that information is available to him and I shall happily forward him the details. Most people seem to understand one, two, three, four and five stars.

[Mr Mark Field]

Having been out recently with the environmental protection team at Westminster city council and watched them in action, I can give some comfort to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) that these systems, at least in Westminster, work moderately well although, as he rightly says, the test is fairly objective.

My hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) must be the first person to have mentioned Cinderella in such seasonal terms in only the second week of October, but this is a Cinderella department and there will clearly be downward pressure on costs for local authorities, so my slight concern is that what is deemed, rightly in my view, to be a deregulatory measure might end up becoming awfully bureaucratic, particularly if a massive set of appeals procedures are to be put in place. My instinctive view is that, if we are going down that route, we should have a review every six or 12 months. The idea that the well-funded muscle of large operators can overturn a hygiene ruling in such a way is unfavourable and would militate against small, independently owned and family-run establishments that had fallen foul of clauses 8 or 9 when it came to their hygiene regulation in any year.

[Mike Freer]

I understand the concern that big operators can dominate the appeals process. That is why larger operators are probably less likely to be high-risk establishments. I understand the concern about burdening our local businesses, but there was an instance in my constituency in which a long-established butcher put many local pensioners into hospital because of its food hygiene standards and the way that chopping boards were used. It was not a chain, but it was a reasonable-sized local business that had been there for many years and had a good reputation among the public. Sadly, it had a bad reputation among environmental health officers. Had there been a grading system on the door, the public might have had a slightly better inkling as to the standard of food hygiene on the cutting boards, which put two or three pensioners into hospital with serious food poisoning. I am keen to avoid regulation, but we have a responsibility, at times, to ensure that consumers have some protection.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Freer]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention.

[Mr Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; he is being generous with his time. While I entirely endorse what has just been said, particularly in relation to a number of ownerships that are in the Cayman Islands and some offshore companies that are difficult to police properly, these proposals also raise another rather obvious question, which is, who polices the policeman? Some of the worst offenders are local authorities, through either arm’s length management organisations or directly owning property in multiple occupation. Where are the powers for individuals or other interested parties to be able to stand up and say that local authorities, which have some say in the running of particular properties, should also be subject to the powers being brought into play under clauses 11 to 20? It seems to me essential that there should be such protections, because in some cases local authorities are the worst offender in such instances.

[Mike Freer]

My hon. Friend is quite correct, but the big difference between a local authority or an ALMO and an offshore HMO operator is that the local council has democratically elected members who are responsible and accessible to their local residents. If council tenants, ALMO tenants or housing association tenants have a grievance about the way their stock is being managed, they have direct access to the board of the ALMO, which often includes local councillors, or to the local council.

Although I appreciate that there may be difficulties, the major problem with HMOs is not with local authority stock. If the Government are seeking to loosen the regulation on HMOs and move to light-touch regulation, there must be checks and balances that do not allow us to abdicate responsibility. There must be some form of safety net to ensure that local authorities have the ability to step in if they believe that an HMO operator is putting tenants at risk, however deregulated the market becomes.