My Lords, I now turn to the national underground asset register, which I will refer to as NUAR. It is a new digital map of buried pipes and cables that is revolutionising the way that we install, maintain, operate and repair our buried infrastructure. The provisions contained in the Bill will ensure workers have complete and up-to-date access to the data that they need, when they need it, through the new register. NUAR is estimated to deliver more than £400 million per year of economic growth through increased efficiency, reduced accidental damage and fewer disruptions for citizens and businesses. I am therefore introducing several government amendments, which are minor in nature and aim to improve the clarity of the Bill. I hope that the Committee will be content if I address these together.
Amendment 244 clarifies responsibilities in relation to the licensing of NUAR data. As NUAR includes data from across public and private sector organisations, it involves both Crown and third-party intellectual property rights, including database rights. This amendment clarifies that the role of the Keeper of the National Archives in determining the licence terms for Crown IP remains unchanged. This will require the Secretary of State to work through the National Archives to determine licence terms for Crown data, as was always intended. Amendments 243 and 245 are consequential to this change.
Similarly, Amendment 241 moves the provision relating to the first initial upload of data to the register under new Part 3A to make the Bill clearer, with Amendments 248 and 249 consequential to this change.
Amendment 242 is a minor and technical amendment that clarifies that regulations made under new Section 106B(1) can be made “for or in connection with”—rather than solely “in connection with”—the making of information kept in NUAR available, with or without a licence.
Amendment 247 is another minor and technical amendment to ensure that consistent language is used throughout Schedule 13 and so further improve the clarity of these provisions. These amendments provide clarity to the Bill; they do not change the underlying policy.
Although Amendment 298 is not solely focused on NUAR, this might perhaps be a convenient point for me to briefly explain it to your Lordships. Amendment 298 makes a minor and technical amendment to Clause 154, the clause which sets out the extent of the Bill. Subsection (4) of that clause currently provides that an amendment, repeal or revocation made by the Bill
“has the same extent as the enactment amended, repealed or revoked”.
Subsection (4) also makes clear that this approach is subject to subsection (3), which provides for certain provisions to extend only to England and Wales and Northern Ireland. Upon further reviewing the Bill, we have identified that subsection (4) should, of course, also be subject to subsection (2), which provides for certain provisions to extend only to England and Wales. Amendment 298 therefore makes provision to ensure that the various subsections of Clause 154 operate effectively together as a coherent package.
I now turn to a series of amendments raised by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. Amendments 240A and 240B relate to new Section 106A, which places a
duty on the Secretary of State to keep a register of information relating to apparatus in streets in England and Wales. Section 106A allows for the Secretary of State to make regulations that establish the form and manner in which the register is kept. The Bill as currently drafted provides for these regulations to be subject to the negative procedure. Amendment 240A calls for this to be changed to the affirmative procedure, while Amendment 240B would require the publication of draft regulations, a call for evidence and the subsequent laying before Parliament of a statement by the Secretary of State before such regulations can be made.
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The provisions in new Section 106A are necessary to enable the Secretary of State to adapt and enhance the service over time by taking advantage of the latest technologies, and to continuously incorporate the feedback of asset owners and users to evolve the service to meet changing needs. We therefore anticipate areas covered by these regulations to be limited and technical in nature—for example, decisions related to the database architecture, infrastructure design or cloud host services used.
Importantly, the provisions under new Section 106A have been separated out from other regulation-making powers in the Bill, such as those related to obligations that will be placed on owners of buried assets and the setting of licensing terms, to allow the most appropriate different consultation requirements and parliamentary procedure to apply to each of them. Consequently, the Government believe that the negative procedure strikes an appropriate balance between affording a degree of parliamentary scrutiny and making proportionate use of parliamentary time. I note that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee did not raise any concerns in relation to NUAR’s proposed measures in its report on the Bill.
Amendment 241A seeks to require a review of pre-existing services. The Geospatial Commission has been engaging with stakeholders on NUAR since 2018. Since then, there have been extensive reviews of existing processes and data exchange services, including via a call for evidence, a pilot project, a public consultation, focus groups and various workshops and other interactions. This work identified that, although there are a handful of services that help to facilitate the exchange of data related to assets in the street, none provides the same service as NUAR—namely, the near real-time exchange of the comprehensive data required by users, including for emergency works. Instead, these services provide incomplete data, in a range of formats—most often PDF—scales, levels of quality and timescales, which results in it taking excavators an average of 6.1 days to receive and process all the information needed to carry out an excavation. NUAR will provide access to all the data needed in a standardised and digitally interactive format in less than 60 seconds, which is why it has the support of industry.
Prior to tabling these provisions, a robust impact assessment on the impact of NUAR, including on existing businesses that help to facilitate the exchange of data, was carried out and received a green rating from the Regulatory Policy Committee. Where required
in accordance with the standard regulation-making process, additional impact assessments will of course also be laid before Parliament as these provisions are implemented. As such, the Government do not deem the requirement to be necessary: it would only delay the realisation of significant benefits to industry and the wider economy.
Amendments 249A and 299A would require a further call for evidence in relation to the impacts of NUAR before these measures can be commenced. In addition to the extensive engagement, particularly the RPC green-rated impact assessment that I have just mentioned, I draw to noble Lords’ attention the fact that we have placed a duty on the Secretary of State to consult relevant stakeholders in areas that will be of highest interest, such as when making regulations implementing the funding model or the requirement to report inaccuracies under new Section 80.
The success of NUAR is largely due to it being developed with industry and other stakeholders, including the security services, for the benefit of industry and citizens—an approach we plan to continue. NUAR has support from the intended beneficiaries of this service—asset owners and excavators—and is on track to deliver the envisaged benefits of £400 million per annum. As one excavator recently stated, if our old system was a horse and cart, NUAR is a Formula 1 car.
For these reasons, I am not able to accept these amendments. I hope the noble Lord will therefore not press them. I beg to move Amendment 240.