Copper Wire Telecoms

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). The majority of people probably have no idea about this subject—certainly no idea of the implications for them. For me, this is a debate about resilience, about what we do when things do not work as they should and about back-up plans. When dealing with climate change, unexpected power outages and extreme weather, we need back-up plans. If we did a quick poll in the room of how many people have 10 litres of water, three days’ supply of food and a torch with back-up batteries in their house, we would probably all fall short, but that is what we need. We also need a phone signal and to be able to contact people.

I will briefly digress to address the point made by the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) about the Vodafone-Three merger. She talked about the areas in which Three is already involved. When she mentioned it was the same people who are in charge of x, y, and z, she did not say they are the same people who have close links to the Chinese Community party. There is a real naivety to think that all is fine and that we can hand over critical infrastructure in this manner, but that debate takes place tomorrow.

The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) set out well the reasons why the switchover is happening and the advantages it will bring to do with better signal, clearer calls and lower energy use. That is fantastic, but we need to ensure that everything works as it should when the switchover takes place.

With new telephone lines working via the internet, all landline users will first need a broadband line, which not everybody has. Traditional telephone lines are run largely by Openreach and Virgin, private sector organisations that have taken the decision to retire these networks. Communication providers such as BT, Sky and TalkTalk are moving their customers over to fibre lines by December 2025. In fact, I believe Virgin hopes to have its customers moved over before then. The Government have said this change is industry led, but in practice it is a bit more complicated. The complexity of the current broadband market means there are more than 600 providers with 600 different processes, each managing the change in their own way. That could leave the consumer vulnerable, and certainly in a position where information is not properly communicated to them.

Analogue lines, of course, have back-up power, so they can work without an independent power supply if a property is affected by a local power cut. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland talked about the issues with his rural island constituency. I appreciate that power outages are far more common there, but even in urban constituencies and in cities, we do have power outages; more than that, wi-fi goes down regularly. Over the past week, the wi-fi in my house went down six times—that I am aware of—and twice while I was in the middle of a meeting. That was really problematic, and it would certainly be problematic for a vulnerable person who has fallen over. Although I understand the specific reasons why the right hon. Member brought this debate, the issue is not specific to rural constituencies.

Currently, personal alarms and fall detectors operate over the analogue network. It is estimated that around 1.7 million people in the UK use such devices, and they will be at risk if we do not get this switchover right. How will a personal care device work on a digital line if there is a power cut or the wi-fi is down? Those are more common occurrences than the Minister might like to admit. Upgrading those devices to the digital network—changing them so they can operate—is also going to be extremely costly, considering the number of people using them.

The Government have said that the change is industry led, possibly to wash their hands of it. Local authorities, which are often concerned with the care of vulnerable individuals, have been given no financial support for this change. Where will the money to upgrade those devices come from? There is also a lack of information, particularly from service providers. Despite that, I do not believe there are any plans for a national awareness campaign, by either Government or Ofcom—maybe the Minister can tell me otherwise. That is something we need to consider.

On top of that, there is also the potential for this switchover to create opportunities for criminals to target vulnerable constituents. There may be a potential increase in criminality through the selling of devices at inflated prices, selling vulnerable individuals new broadband packages that they may not use when all they use is a phone line, or perhaps charging for unnecessary work in their properties. We all need to be aware of those possibilities.

In summary, what is it we need? We need clear information—a campaign from Government to let people know what is happening. The timescale for this switchover has to be stretched. December 2025 will come up on us very quickly. From what we have heard this morning, many things clearly have not been considered. We need a back-up plan for when the internet goes down, and not just for when there are power cuts, because the internet often goes down even without power cuts. We need to know what specific interventions will take place in rural areas. Finally, returning to my initial point on resilience, we need to think more carefully about how we all consider our own resilience. Do we have the means to cope with extreme weather? We will be getting more of it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Chris Bryant]

The right hon. Gentleman made some very good points and I will come on to them in a moment.

It is good to have the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) here with us, who made some very important points. She referred to the debate tomorrow on the potential merger between Vodafone and Three. I will also not be there, because I shall be at Glenys Kinnock’s funeral. The Minister will have a different shadow tomorrow; my place will be taken admirably by another Chris from the shadow Front Bench, also from south Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans). I somewhat disagree with the points that the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal made, but anyway, those will be elucidated tomorrow.

It was good to hear from the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), who referred to notspots, which I think she said covered 13% of her constituency, and the fact that 3% of people in the UK have no 4G signal. We are also 51st in the world for 5G signal. We are all aware that there are quite a lot of issues in terms of mobile and internet connectivity that apply to large sections of the United Kingdom. Somehow, we have not really managed to seize this with the energy that some other countries have managed.

[Carol Monaghan]

I apologise to the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), because I meant to mention her point about mobile signals indoors. I think any of us who have tried to have a mobile phone call on the parliamentary estate will know that mobile signals indoors are temperamental at least. Older buildings can be difficult, because of the thickness of the walls. Modern buildings can make it difficult for mobile signals too, because of the amount of steel on the outside of them. Having a mobile signal outside does not necessarily mean there is a mobile signal inside.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I will come on to that point about the difference between inside and outside, which certainly applies to homes in the Rhondda. The point was also made by the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal. I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) was saying that the signal on the parliamentary estate was temperamental or that the MPs were—maybe it is a bit of both. The hon. Lady made other good points about the potential for criminality. This is not a point that I have heard elsewhere. The Minister may want to refer to it later.

One of the biggest problems with this debate is that the vast majority of people in this country would have absolutely no idea what we are talking about. In fact, I would guess that of the 650 MPs, barely 10% would know what we are talking about. That is a potential problem, because if the public does not know what we are talking about, there is a danger for other people to exploit that lack of understanding and knowledge. Several Members have referred to the fact that this is primarily an industry-led, rather than Government-led, project. They are quite right, but the Government have a significant responsibility in this area. Towards the end of my speech, I will come on to a few things that I think the Government may want to look at.

There are real, legitimate concerns. PSTN—if 650 MPs were asked to say what that acronym stood for, my guess is that we would be lucky if 10 of them knew the answer—stands for public switched telephone network, and I only know that because I am reading it out.

The complete lack of public understanding of the issue is significant. The industry is extremely diverse, with roughly 650 providers in England alone, let alone the rest of the UK. As has already been referred to, BT has decided to delay its digital voice roll-out, and instead of a national roll-out by the end of December 2025 there will be a region-by-region roll-out, which adds a degree of complexity to any kind of national understanding of this issue. Indeed, I would argue that there is even less clarity about what is happening now than there was back in 2022.

As has already been said, some devices rely on PSTN. Security alarms are one. I would guess that quite a few MPs have security alarms. I wonder how many of those alarms are reliant on PSTN; I have no idea.