Broadband Universal Service Obligation

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Calum Kerr), the Scottish National party spokesperson, who always speaks with such passion on this subject, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) on securing this welcome debate. He brings considerable expertise in this area to the House.

The starting point for all hon. Members is that everyone must share the benefits of our modern digital society. That is an issue that Members on both sides of the House have championed for many years. The message has come out from this House loud and clear today that broadband and mobile coverage are no longer nice-to-haves but essentials. The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness gave an excellent overview of the debate, but he made three particularly important points: first, that we need a plurality of providers in the procurement process, and that one size clearly does not fit all, given the various challenges that the universal service obligation will bring; secondly, that the USO should be extended to road and rail across the UK—I would add waterways—and thirdly, that we must have publication of address-level data. I, too, commend the Ofcom app that helps to collect those data.

My hon. Friends the Members for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) and for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) clearly demonstrated which areas have been left behind when it comes to investment and the consequences of failing to give rural issues the same priority as those in the rest of the country. As they made clear, digital exclusion has implications not just for our digital economy but for society; for example, it excludes people from the internet of things, and they therefore face higher costs and greater exclusion. The right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), who is not back in his place, made two important points: one about increased powers for BDUK, which we support, and another about promotion for the Minister for Digital and Culture; no one could disagree with that, not least because it would mean a promotion for me as well, so we will go with that.

The hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) made a very important case on mobile not spots; that raises important issues for the 5G auction, which I hope that the Minister will address. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) made an impassioned speech about digital skills. I hope that the Government’s digital strategy, when they finally produce it, will address his points at length. The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) explained the dire and shocking levels of access in her constituency. I am sure that the Minister will want to address her points, given that he has the neighbouring constituency.

Finally, the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) set out the staggering lack of ambition in the USO. The lack of ambition in today’s announcement is a particular concern. BDUK estimates that as of March 2016, there were still over 3.1 million premises without the capability to receive superfast broadband. That is expected to decrease to just over 1.9 million by the time BDUK ends, but 5% of premises will still be incapable of receiving speeds of just 10 megabits per second or above—nowhere near that superfast range. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, that figure is even higher, and in rural UK, it is 24%.

The Government have been forced to revise their target for their broadband commitments a number of times, despite the claims from the former Minister, the right hon. Member for Wantage. While we might not be a digital desert, the hon. Member for The Cotswolds was right to warn against complacency. We should be much higher up the international league table.

The broadband investment fund, which was trailed by the former Chancellor in last year’s autumn statement, will take the UK from 2% full fibre coverage to just 7% by 2020; that will reach 2 million of the 27.1 million households in the UK. Full fibre coverage is so poor that the UK does not even warrant a place on the annual European league table. The pledge to reach 7% of households will mean that the UK will finally have the same coverage that Latvia and Lithuania achieved in 2012. It is therefore right to ask the Government about the roll-out of their USO, and we will monitor them closely as it is delivered.

We have yet to see the Ofcom report. Its consultation was not very promising, as it found little industry appetite for delivering the USO. If the process is to be trusted, transparent and fair, all the information should be in the open and part of the procurement process, so that as many providers as possible can participate and we can ensure that the playing field is as level as possible. I cautiously welcome the Government’s statement of their intent to consider different types of providers, such as regional providers and smaller ones using innovative technologies, but I am afraid that they are cautious, given the serious failures around the BDUK procurement. Those failures left BT as the only supplier, and the process was condemned by the Public Accounts Committee for failing to deliver meaningful competition or value for money. It is important that the Government give a clear commitment today that community providers and those with different innovative solutions will be consulted and made firmly part of the USO process.

As we have previously discussed, there is no doubt that there is a coalition of support for a much more ambitious USO. That is why we support resetting the USO, through secondary legislation, when it becomes outdated, as it will in the very near future; the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness termed this “digital inflation”. The Minister should bear that clearly in mind. We fully support the proposal from the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness for Low Pay Commission-style oversight of the level of the USO, and we absolutely need more detail today on how often and how it will be reviewed.

As we have seen all too often, businesses and residences see a particular speed advertised, but there is no correlation between that and what they are actually able to download, so we would appreciate an update on the Minister’s work with the Advertising Standards Authority on advertising speeds.

As the Federation of Small Businesses notes, small businesses are disproportionately less likely to have access to acceptable download speeds. Some 46% of businesses in postcodes that cover only small and medium-sized enterprises—namely, business parks—had broadband connections with a maximum speed of less than 10 megabits per second, while 24% had maximum speeds of less than 5 megabits and 12% less than 2 megabits. We fully support the right of small businesses to request a USO themselves—and, crucially, an information campaign to make them aware of those rights. Clarity about how the USO relates to businesses would also be welcome.

On the detail of the USO, we know that connections will be subject to a cost threshold. Are we any closer to knowing what that cost threshold is likely to be, and to how many properties it will apply? The Minister knows—we have discussed this many times—that we fully support the intent of the Government. As the Digital Economy Bill makes its way through the other place, I hope Ofcom will have produced its report, so that it can have a much better idea of where this obligation is heading. We urge the Government to take into account the many views of hon. Members in today’s debate. Above all, what I think we have heard is that it is time to be more ambitious, and we certainly need more detail.

Finally, the benefits of more of us being online and more things coming online are clear, but that also presents challenges. It was disappointing that the Digital Economy Bill failed to cover two major areas that we are grappling with in our digital economy: online abuse and data protection. We must make serious progress on tackling online abuse and the responsibility of social media sites. Obviously, we have had some debate around child protection, in terms of accessing age-inappropriate material, but the threats to children and indeed adults are much broader, and it is disappointing that sites such as Facebook continue to take a sincerely hands-off approach, defending themselves as platform-only, whether that is on the sharing of fake news, bullying and abuse, or taking money from organisations with extremist ideology. I note the Parents Portal that Facebook launched this week, which is welcome, but I would be grateful to hear from the Minister what progress he is making in this area.

On data security and privacy, the rise of big data, particularly around the internet of things, presents huge issues around consent and ethics. We must urgently get to grips with the parameters of big data, and with where consent begins and ends in this changed landscape of data protection. I hope that the Minister will be able to announce some progress on this soon. We are happy to support the Government’s intent; we would just like to see the Minister be a little more ambitious. I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to today’s debate.