I will just say a word in support of my noble friend’s amendment, which I have put my name to. First, I join in what has been said about my noble friend the Minister. In the years that I have been here, one has often had Ministers who, one feels, are mere parrots for the civil servants. That is not the case with my noble friend. She has taken a real interest and is really concerned to get the right answer. What is the right answer? I think there are three points.
First, as has been said, the protection and cherishing of these very special landscapes, particularly the national parks and the areas of outstanding natural beauty, is crucial for our very small island. The way in which we have retained them since 1949 is amazing. It must be remembered that we were 50 years after the Americans in inventing national parks, but a wonderful job has been done with them. We therefore have to make absolutely sure that we do not legislate for a short-term apparent problem. Nobody denies that the whole broadband thing is important, and we are united on
the need for it, but we should not legislate on a short-term basis for that with any risk of undermining the very long-term principle of preserving these landscapes for generations to come. That is my first point, and I know that my noble friend is attempting to meet that in the amendment that she has put forward.
The second point is what could actually happen to the landscape as a result of what is going to happen in the way of installation of broadband. I had the advantage of going to a meeting with British Telecom—which my noble friend the Minister chaired, sponsored and arranged—and I found it, in a sense, quite helpful. There were one or two things that particularly struck me. First, although we questioned BT very closely, it was not able to produce a single example from the past or the predictable future of why this clause is needed. It is all very theoretical. The second point is that they showed us the various bits of hardware which are involved in broadband—one, of course, is the cabinets, which do the switching. They are quite big, about twice the size of filing cabinet, and they have to be scattered around; it is a little unclear how close they have to be to the service that they are trying to provide. They take the fibre optic cable and then transfer it to the copper cable, which is what most of the broadband ends up reaching the final premises in, unless it is a new premises in which case, they put the fibre optic straight in. The cabinets are quite big and could be very intrusive. It ought, in my view, to be quite easy to conceal them, and make sure that they are carefully sited.
The thing that worries me much more is the wires—the fibre optic cables that carry the signal. Wires that are strewn across open countryside can be very intrusive and damaging to the landscape and one simply does not want them. In the past, much care has been taken to ensure that that does not happen. British Telecom told us that where there are underground wires already, it will use the ducts in which those wires go to put the new fibre optics in. Where the services are already over ground, it will probably put the fibre optic cable on the poles that already exist. That is probably acceptable.
However, there is another point. BT is not the only organisation that will be putting in broadband in these rural areas. Another big company, the Japanese company Fujitsu, is keen to come in. We know that the ownership of existing methods of transferring wires is largely in the hands of BT. In theory it would be just as possible for the incoming company to take exactly the same care and trouble for its wires and cables as BT does. However, the fact is that this is something that belongs to BT and so it will have a commercial right to expect some money in exchange for using it.
The world of telecommunications—and the world as a whole—is highly competitive, and companies are trying to cut their costs to get the orders and the business. The point that I raised, which I hope that my noble friend may be able to comment on, is: to what extent—when we have finished with the Bill as it now looks with the amendments from my noble friend—will we be able to ensure that a third company, as it were, that comes in to install broadband in these sensitive areas is not able to cut a few cents of the cost by
putting overhead lines where underground wires exist, or by putting up new poles where other people’s poles exist?
That is a really important consideration, which brings me to the third point about the importance of this debate. We know now, and have known for years, ever since various constitutional changes, that what is said in Parliament and can be read in Hansard is of value in the real world in years to come. Therefore, I am very anxious that, in expressing our concerns and wishes, we all spell out the problems and the Minister seeks to spell out the answers, so that when cases arise in which there are controversies and conflicts, at least Hansard will be able to be quoted and the intention and wish of Parliament can be interpreted.
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