Telecommunications

(asked on 21st January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she plans to amend the Electronic Communications Code to allow fixed line telecoms operators to install apparatus on poles erected before 2017 without the need for a new wayleave agreement.


Answered by
Julia Lopez Portrait
Julia Lopez
Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
This question was answered on 31st January 2022

The Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill includes measures that are intended to make it easier for operators to deploy, upgrade and share telecommunications infrastructure, while protecting the rights and interests of individual landowners.

The De Minimis Impact Assessment (which can be accessed here) sets out the overall potential benefits that the Bill will deliver. Access to robust and reliable connectivity is critical to our future economic prosperity. The reforms we are bringing forward through the Bill will help achieve that goal.

The measures in the Bill were carefully developed to balance the public benefits they can deliver and any interference with individual property rights.

However, since the Bill was introduced, stakeholders have indicated that additional, substantial public benefit may be achieved if upgrading and sharing is more readily available, particularly in relation to telegraph poles installed on private land before 2017.

My officials are discussing this point with stakeholders to test the impact of the present proposals and to understand whether the correct balance has been achieved. If appropriate, changes will be considered.

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