The noble Lord, Lord Deben, says that this is a tricky issue and he is clearly right. One of the tricky bits of this amendment is that many aspects of internet behaviour can be fitted under these amendments. The ones in my comments relate to those of the noble Lord, Lord Best, in which people using voice over internet protocol have been wrongly charged for it. Nobody wants to see that situation but I question whether there is a need to change the law to tackle such behaviour as we have good and robust protections in place for consumers.
I also understand that companies which block services such as Skype no longer offer packages that do so, except on legacy tariffs, so these terms and conditions should not apply. I also understand that the regulator
Ofcom has been in dialogue with the providers, and that there is a commitment to review the wording in their terms and conditions to ensure that these are not misinterpreted in this way.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about the assessment of the two-tier internet. The Government’s intention is to ensure an open, secure and safe internet. Where some services are blocked, we want to see transparency. However, our experience is that competition is working. The proposals in the US are informed by the US market. The UK’s market is very different, so we watch with interest to see what the FCC will do.
More broadly, the Government and industry through the Broadband Stakeholder Group have done a great deal of work together to ensure that there is greater transparency. For example, two industry codes of practice have now been developed. This, coupled with the UK’s highly competitive telecoms market, has been very successful in ensuring that there is no consumer detriment caused by traffic management problems.
I hope that this gives some reassurance to noble Lords proposing the amendments. However, given their wide applicability, it makes an awful lot of sense to convene a meeting on this issue with interested parties before Report. Therefore, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.