Consumer Rights Bill

Debate between Philip Davies and Helen Goodman

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

It is a red-letter day for me when the hon. Members for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and for Walthamstow agree with me. I could not have envisaged such cross-party support, and if the Minister is able to withstand that I will be disappointed. We have a political consensus, of which I am usually very suspicious. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the principle of net neutrality is the most important point. It is not simply a question of transparency; transparency is the minimum that people can expect. With my amendment, I am trying to ensure that we have net neutrality and truly open access to the internet, and to put an end to protectionist and restrictive practices that are against consumers’ interests.

I am referring to services including voice over IP, which is similar to Skype. Voice over IP allows consumers significantly to reduce their phone bills by using voice over the internet, instead of their mobile provider’s phone minutes and messaging services that use mobile data rather than text. It is especially important for consumers that that market works efficiently given Ofcom’s research finding that a quarter of the UK’s poorest households are mobile-only and are wholly beholden to mobile operators’ tariffs to enable them to access crucial services.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me that if a consumer signs a mobile phone contract that offers internet access, he or she should be entitled to use any legal internet service that they deem fit, not just the parts of the internet that suit their mobile phone company. I hope that hon. Members understand that customers who buy a mobile phone package rarely have the time or inclination to read through all the minutiae in the small print, even if they have the foresight to imagine all the services that they might want to use over the two-year life of their contract. Surely, customers have the right to expect that an internet service will do what it says on the tin. Consumers should, therefore, be able to rely on statutory consumer protection regulations to protect them from such abusive practices.

Given the rapid evolution of the internet, I do not think that it would be wise for Parliament to attempt to define everything that the internet is and does for the future, but I am convinced that the current unfettered ability of telecommunications providers, whether they be internet service providers or mobile operators, to decide what customers can and cannot access is harmful to consumers and to the wider economy. As I have outlined, those practices not only create significant consumer harm but stifle competition—for example, in the market for non-geographic and international calls—which leads to exorbitant prices and discourages new entrants to the market.

There is also concern surrounding future innovation and economic growth. If innovators have no certainty that networks will carry their services, particularly if they rival products offered by the networks, companies will be less likely to invest in new services because the return on investment will be unpredictable. How can a provider who wants to build a mobile app have any certainty that the mobile network operator will not block his rival service and/or make it extremely opaque at the point of sale whether consumers can actually access those services? Such things should be of great concern to us, because they will stifle growth in a sector that is incredibly important to the future prosperity of the country.

When I asked representatives from Ofcom about the matter during a Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport hearing last summer, there was an acceptance that some undesirable blocking was being undertaken by certain mobile operators around specific internet services, and that more needed to be done to ensure that telecommunications providers were transparent and up front with their customers. Ed Richards, the Ofcom chief executive, outlined the industry voluntary code on the transparency of information given to consumers about traffic management practices. I have grave concerns about whether the information that providers are supplying to their customers is helping in any way, shape or form. Ofcom’s research in September 2013 demonstrated that consumers were not aware about traffic management practices when making their purchasing decisions.

Together with the internet code around transparency, the industry has created a voluntary self-regulatory code on maintaining the open internet. I believe that the code is a good one, and it will be an effective tool for protecting consumers and businesses. The significant problem is that some major providers are yet to sign up, nearly two years after the launch of the initiative. Given that there is no obligation on UK telecommunication providers in that area, those providers that are transparent and allow access to services could easily change their minds tomorrow and not be subject to any action.

Therefore, I think it is time that the House recognised that unless more action is taken, certain industry players will continue to use clever marketing tactics and rely on the lack of consumer understanding to mislead their customers, distort the market and damage new and innovative internet services that threaten their own products. That is why I have proposed amendment 19, which would protect consumers from the practices that I have described. The amendment would ensure that anyone selling internet access, or using any similar term, will not be able to rely on any unreasonable or unusual definition of that term to restrict their customers’ access to legal parts of the internet.

I have made it clear, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Walthamstow for doing the same, that I do not seek in any way to limit the ability of internet service providers to block access to sites for the purposes of child protection. Nor would my amendment prevent internet service providers from offering age-related content blocks where customers request them. I certainly would not want to do anything to change that. That is why I would be happy to support the hon. Lady’s amendment if she seeks to divide the House.

Amendment 19 would give customers confidence that when they sign a two-year contract that offers internet access, they will get full internet access and will not be left with a contract that they cannot get out of that does not do what they thought it would when they signed up to it. It is essential to preserve and protect consumer access to the legal internet. We cannot allow internet service providers to decide for themselves, based on their own commercial interests, what customers can and cannot access while still marketing their service as internet access.

The protection offered by amendment 19 would benefit all consumers, but it would also spur innovation, growth and job creation in a sector that is vital for the future prosperity of the country. Therefore, I urge hon. Members to support my amendment or the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Walthamstow. I hope that we will not have to press the matter to a Division, because I hope that the Minister will understand the strength of the case that we have made and reaffirm that the Government will deliver on open internet access. If she is not prepared to do that, I hope that the hon. Member for Walthamstow will press her amendment to a vote, which I would support.

[Helen Goodman]

I would like to congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your recent damehood. I know that a knighthood is a real thing, but I am not sure whether a damehood is a thing. However, it is a very well deserved recognition of your excellent service to the House over many years, and I am sure that all hon. Members were delighted to hear the news.

This is a marvellous occasion for another reason. It is wonderful to be in the Chamber in agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and the hon. Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). That is a fantastic coalition, and it shows what a beacon of free speech the House of Commons is, because that principle has motivated everybody to get involved in the debate. I believe that the principle of net neutrality is the principle of free speech in the modern world. My hon. Friend set out a clear and cogent case for amendment (a) to amendment 19, and the hon. Member for Shipley proposed amendment 19 comprehensively. I shadow the Minister with responsibility for communications and creative industries, the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), and I hope that the Minister at the Dispatch Box, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, has had some conversations with him since, in many ways, this issue falls into his bailiwick.

Let me elaborate a tiny bit on what my hon. Friend said. Net neutrality is absolutely central to the operation of the internet. The principle that there should be no discrimination between services when providing internet access is fundamental to an open net. At the moment in this country we have no legislation, but we have a voluntary industry code of practice for internet and mobile service providers. However, the problem is that as it is voluntary the companies do not have to abide by it. European Commissioner Neelie Kroes has been working on proposals for net neutrality across the European Union as part of the single telecoms package. I was disappointed that the hon. Member for Shipley did not highlight that excellent proposal from the European Union, but we do not need to wait for the European Union to have this debate or to ask the Government what they are doing, because the issue is a central one.

The possibility of amending the Bill was brought to my attention by ITSPA, the Internet Telephony Services Providers Association, which is concerned that some internet providers have an interest in refusing to carry voice-over IP services because they have a competing product. Having discussed the question with Ofcom, I am not clear whether that is happening. If it is, it should not be, and if it is not, there is a risk that it might happen, and we in this House need to address that.

The point made by the hon. Gentleman about the lack of transparency and consumer awareness is extremely concerning. There is a problem when people buy a piece of kit or take out a contract with one ISP or mobile phone provider if, in doing so, they restrict their access to some material and if there is no description or warning of that. That is clearly a limitation of their access to information on a free net.

Ofcom is working to improve the effectiveness of the code of practice on traffic management transparency. My view is that transparency is not enough and that we need rules of the game that go beyond it. I am not convinced that even if the information was on a strapline across the packaging when people bought a piece of kit or signed a mobile contract they would fully realise what it meant. This is too important to leave simply to transparency, which is why I have put my name to amendment 19 and why I support these changes.

The Minister needs to tell the House what the Government are doing proactively to preserve net neutrality. It is not enough to take a reactive stance, as the Government are on many communications issues. The Communications Act 2003 is a very good Act, but it is getting out of date and this is one example of that. That is why we were particularly concerned to have this debate in the House today so that we could find out what Ministers are doing.

It is essential that we preserve free speech on the internet and net neutrality is part of that. There is a small exception in amendment 19 to enable us to continue with child protection—again, we have cross-party agreement on the importance of child protection—but we are all agreed that we want net neutrality, with that single exception, to be the modern form of free speech.

Deregulation Bill

Debate between Philip Davies and Helen Goodman

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) said, the Opposition have a lot of sympathy for the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, but we were not clear whether it means that things would be opened up for negotiation—whether or not to pay; how much to pay—or whether no payments and no broadcasting would be possible. That is our uncertainty.

[Philip Davies]

It would enable a normal commercial arrangement to be reached, but it would not do anything to stop the terms of the Communications Act 2003, under which broadcasters must offer their public service broadcasting channels to cable and satellite platforms. That would still be the case, but the amendment would enable a commercial negotiation to take place, which would be fair to both parties. Otherwise, the situation works for neither party; it is to everybody’s advantage that an agreement is reached. Terrestrial broadcasters want their content on cable, and cable wants that content out there, so there is reason for reaching an agreement.