Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Baroness Byford

1st reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 31st January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Byford]

My Lords, as someone who is not as well versed as some noble Lords with the technology, it always strikes me as strange that if you go abroad, wherever you are, you seem to be able to get access. What do they do that we do not? Are there lessons that we should be learning? Do they have a different system? How does it actually work? It seems ludicrous that we are going into such nitty-gritty when perhaps, over there, there is something that we are not even opening our minds to.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions in this interesting and important debate. Amendment 6, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, seeks to include mobile coverage within the scope of the guidance on the broadband universal service obligation. The universal service directive currently provides the regulatory framework for a broadband USO and although, depending on the design of a broadband USO, there is scope for the USO connection to be provided using mobile technology such as 4G, the directive does not apply to mobile coverage.

I am afraid we do not currently consider there is a case for a USO for mobile. The Government have already secured significant progress to ensure mobile coverage across the whole of the UK through the licence obligations arising from the December 2014 agreement with the mobile network operators, which locked in £5 billion of investment to support the rollout plans. We want to hold the mobile operators’ feet to the fire, and noble Lords will be aware that Clause 10 will give the regulator, Ofcom, the power to issue hefty fines to mobile phone companies that fail to meet their licence obligations. The noble Lord, Lord Gordon, mentioned that it does not help if you are not getting a full mobile service, but it is a direct incentive, as is compensation. We are trying to achieve what he wants.

Amendment 19, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, seeks a licence variation to require roaming within networks where there is an intermittent or no signal, while Amendment 17 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, would offer roaming as automatic compensation. I understand the frustrations of people whose mobile experience does not live up to their expectations, but although roaming appears to offer a quick fix, it would do more harm than good, undermining the incentive for operators to invest in new infrastructure. This is particularly important for areas that have no coverage from any provider at all, as there is no incentive to invest capital in a new mast if other operators simply piggy-back off your investment.

Noble Lords mentioned coverage in other countries— my noble friend Lady Byford mentioned travel abroad. The reason for that is there are international roaming agreements, which apply to a UK citizen travelling in Europe. However, it is offered on a fair-use basis, when tourists travel for a limited period of time. Details of a fair-use test to prevent abuse of roaming are being agreed in the EU at the moment.

Roaming was considered by the Government in 2014, but was rejected in favour of licence obligations to drive increased coverage by all mobile operators, which locked in the £5 billion investment I mentioned earlier. We are making progress: Ofcom’s Connected Nations 2016 report, which records progress to June 2016, shows that 99% of UK premises now have indoor voice coverage and 98% have indoor 3G or 4G data coverage. Our recent reforms to mobile planning laws in England, and the proposed reforms of the Electronic Communications Code which we will be talking about later, will support further investment and improvements in connectivity across the UK and reduce coverage not-spots. We are working to make it easier and cheaper for mobile companies to invest so that consumers benefit from good coverage and can receive it at low prices. Our measures are achieving this, and our future reforms will support this further, thereby delivering a better deal for consumers across the UK.

Noble Lords will also be aware of our commitment to being world leaders in 5G, as the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, suggested. That is why we announced over £1 billion of funding in the Autumn Statement to support the deployment of the next generation of digital infrastructure. We want to support investment, and not discourage it. The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, talked about his desire to see no masts at all and for the system to be based on satellites. I am not an expert on the technical side of this, but I think I am right in saying that for 5G, which is what we are aiming for, we are going to see more masts, I am afraid, or more transmitters attached to various edifices—we will talk about that later, I am sure—because they have shorter range and greater bandwidth. So I am afraid I do not think the bandwidth that is possible from satellites will enable what we have all talked about and what is required for the future.

National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Baroness Byford

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

Unfortunately, I could not be present on Report but I think my noble friend Lord Cormack spoke about this matter. As the Minister will remember, the whole idea was to give those participating in the scheme some sort of public recognition. I was not too worried about the wording; I was just keen that other youngsters should be encouraged to take part. The suggestion was not necessarily that there should be a formal ceremony, as there is when people come to this country and take citizenship. This is about young people taking part in citizen service, and it seems a shame to miss the opportunity to have that recognition in what I think is a very good scheme. I am grateful to the Minister and everybody who has taken part for their efforts to make sure that it is a good scheme. The Minister said that he would refer the matter to the department. I am just saying that I hope it does not get lost, and I thank him for his courtesy.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I should be clear on this. I said on Report that the Bill will not encompass citizenship. This is completely different—we are talking about the social action review. I am sure my noble friend is aware of that but I just want to make it clear.

National Citizen Service Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Baroness Byford

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th November 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lords who have tabled these amendments and I should like to reinforce one or two things that have been said. The issue of young carers is a subject very close to my heart. At Second Reading I mentioned that I was connected to Young Leicestershire. One of its clubs aims to give carers a chance to be something other than a carer for a short time each week. I am not really interested in whether the wording is right—I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if it sounds rude to say that—but the thrust of what we are trying to achieve here is enormously important.

On accessibility for the hard to reach, I have received a lot of correspondence from different groups concerned about how this will happen in practice. It sounds odd but perhaps I may put on a rurality hat. One of the big challenges is knowing how to provide the sort of service that we want for people who have to travel many miles to achieve anything. I realised when I sat down at Second Reading that I had not mentioned rurality. Obviously it is easier to get to bigger numbers of people when they live close together than it is to reach people in very rural areas. Some of the carers and young people out there who are doing a wonderful job incur additional costs in travelling to take part in such schemes.

I am very anxious that this scheme should work really well and that we should do as much as we possibly can to ensure that the hard-to-reach are reached, but with it will come extra costs, as was said earlier by other noble Lords. A challenge it is, but not one that we cannot overcome. As the Bill stands, however, it does not clarify it. A few extra words might well resolve some of the concerns felt by other groups out there.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to debate on this important part of the Bill.

I start by addressing the question of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, in the previous group, and the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, about refugees. The Bill is clear: you are eligible for a place on the programme if you are resident in England or receive education or training there. That brings me to refugees, who are welcome on the NCS. Guidance has been circulated among charities on making NCS available to them.

I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott, Lady Barker and Lady Royall, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, who have spoken about an aim that is at the heart of the NCS: that it must be accessible to all. If it is not, it is simply not NCS. It must be available to any young person who wants a place. The royal charter stipulates that the trust must ensure “equality of access” to the programme: that is a clear requirement that can never be watered down. The NCS Trust will need to take all reasonable steps to meet that obligation and to report every year on the extent to which participants from different backgrounds have taken part. This means demonstrating that individuals from varying circumstances have come together in NCS groups, and I commit to noble Lords that this will include individuals with disabilities. NCS is a universal offer, and the trust must report on how it has made this a reality. I confirm, therefore, that we want to ensure that there is a place on National Citizen Service for every young person who wants one. We are currently working closely with the NCS Trust to ensure that it is fully accessible. The trust is currently developing a detailed inclusion strategy to ensure that over the longer term there is consistent and high quality for all.

Already, many NCS providers reach out and offer support to those with disabilities. For example, the largest provider, The Challenge, has worked with the National Deaf Children’s Society and adapted the programme for young people, including providing dedicated support workers. Across NCS, young people with special educational needs have personal coaches and one-to-one support workers alongside staff members. That brings us to the question of resources. It is the trust’s job to ensure that providers can make the programme accessible to all young people. Providers can work with the trust to access more resource. The Bill puts the requirement to make NCS accessible to all firmly in the charter.

The Government mean to take seriously their duty to hold the trust to account for meeting these requirements. If they do not, they have Parliament to answer to. The Government must provide the trust with the means of fulfilling its legal duty on this point: sufficient funding to allow people with disabilities to take part. That is why the Bill also enables the trust to deliver the programme to individuals as young as 15 and as old as 24. While the core demographic for NCS is 16 to 17 year-olds, this ensures that providers can be flexible for those with additional needs, such as people with disabilities. Clause 3 provides for the Government to fund the NCS Trust. The grant agreements drawn up between the trust and the Government will specify particular requirements on an evolving basis. We can assure the Committee that the trust will continue to work flexibly to provide any reasonable additional resource or support that a provider may require to deliver the programme.

Turning to reporting, the Bill requires the trust to report on how far it has met its strategic priorities, including the requirement to ensure that the programme is accessible to people of all backgrounds. There is an additional specific requirement to report on the extent to which people from different backgrounds have worked together. We have not listed all the specific categories we intend to cover, but people with disabilities is one of them. If we mention one category, we should list all of them, and that is unnecessary detail for the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, mentioned the Equality Act. They are right that the Bill will make the NCS Trust subject to the Act. It includes far-reaching duties to consider the need to advance equality of opportunity between people with a protected characteristic and persons without that characteristic, which of course includes disability.

I note that both noble Lords expressed worries about the limitations of the Act, and of course I will go back and look carefully at what they said, but that is in addition to what I said before about it being available to all, which is in the charter.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, would add to the functions of the trust to foster social integration and have special provision for the hardest-to-reach groups. The more complete list of the trust’s functions is included in the royal charter. These include an objective,

“to promote social cohesion by ensuring equality of access to the programmes by participants regardless of their background or circumstances”.

I hope that the noble Lord agrees that that covers both those points. To ensure equality of access, those with additional needs will in some cases require special provision.

His other amendment would change the requirement to enable participants from “different” backgrounds to work together to participants from “all” backgrounds. I think in this clause “different” backgrounds carries the stronger meaning. Although we want the programme as a whole to cater to all backgrounds, in each individual group we want a mix of different backgrounds.

The noble Lord asked how we expect the NCS programme successfully to achieve that in future and how successfully it brings people from different backgrounds together. Last year, 17% of summer participants were eligible for free school meals, compared with 8% of young people of the same age in the general population; and 30% were from black, mixed, or Asian backgrounds, compared with 19% of the general population. We think that the NCS Trust is doing quite well at the moment, but we certainly expect it to continue with plans in that area.