European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

Does the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, share the surprise I feel that the Prime Minister should have said that we would not be part of the digital single market? I am at a loss to think what domestic regulatory flexibility she could be alluding to. After all, the very point of the Data Protection Act is ostensibly to implement European standards on cross-border transfers of data, which is crucial for the tech industry as well as many other industries. If we are not part of the digital single market, how are British consumers to continue to enjoy the absence—the abolition—of roaming mobile charges? The mobile operators are saying, “We hope we won’t have to put up roaming charges, but it rather depends if we are in the digital single market so that we can get access to European-level wholesale rates”. So first, a British policy not to be in the digital single market does not make any sense. Secondly, British consumers are going to take a hit when they go on the continent for business or holidays. Who is going to explain that to British consumers?

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I agree with everything the noble Baroness has said. When we were given the instruction by the British people two years ago to commence negotiations on leaving the European Union, I did not meet anybody who said that the reason they wanted to leave it was so that they could pay higher mobile phone charges and restart paying roaming charges for travelling on the continent. It is a complete absurdity.

Since in her Mansion House speech the Prime Minister showed movement in many areas, which we have welcomed in earlier debates, on engagement in key areas of the single market and customs arrangements, I find it utterly mystifying that she should specifically have excluded the digital single market. This is one area in which Britain has done more than any other to forge its rules, which have been so advantageous to major British companies that would not exist if it were not for the development of the single market. Vodafone, one of the biggest and most successful companies in the country, would not exist as a serious international company if it were not for the success of successive British Governments in negotiating what has become the digital single market during the last 20 years.

I invite the Minister, with the new-found and emollient flexibility that he has been demonstrating, to say that he is prepared to take away and consider—I think that is the phrase he now uses—Britain’s continued engagement in the digital single market. Specifically, is it the view of the Government that we should start to reintroduce roaming charges for British mobile phone users from the end of March next year?