My Lords, I thank the Minister for his exposition. He explained the purposes of Clauses 138 to 141 and extolled their virtues, and helpfully explained what my amendments are trying to do—not that he has shot any foxes in the process.
The purpose of my amendments is much more fundamental, and that is to question the methodology of the Government in all of this. The purpose of NUAR is to prevent accidental strikes where building works damage underground infrastructure. However, the Government seem to have ignored the fact that an equivalent service—LinesearchbeforeUdig, or LSBUD—already achieves these aims, is much more widely used than NUAR and is much more cost effective. The existing system has been in place for more than 20 years and now includes data from more than 150 asset owners. It is used by 270,000 UK digging contractors and individuals—and more every day. The fact is that, without further consultation and greater alignment with current industry best practice, NUAR risks becoming a white elephant, undermining the safe working practices that have kept critical national infrastructure in the UK safe for more than two decades.
However, the essence of these amendments is not to cancel NUAR but to get NUAR and the Government to work much more closely with the services that already exist and those who wish to help. They are designed to ensure that proper consultation and democratic scrutiny is conducted before NUAR is implemented in statutory form. Essentially, the industry says that NUAR could be made much better and much quicker if it worked more closely with the private sector services that already exist. Those who are already
involved with LinesearchbeforeUdig say, first of all, that NUAR will create uncertainty and reduce safety, failing in its key aims.
The Government have been developing the NUAR since 2018. Claiming that it would drive a reduction in unexpected underground assets being damaged in roadworks, the impact assessment incorrectly states:
“No businesses currently provide a service that is the same or similar to the service that NUAR would provide”.
In fact, as I said, LSBUD has been providing a safe digging service in the UK for 20 years and has grown significantly over that time. Without a plan to work more closely with LSBUD as the key industry representative, NUAR risks creating more accidental strikes of key network infrastructure, increasing risks to workers safety through electrical fires, gas leaks, pollution and so on. The public at home or at work would also suffer more service outages and disruption.
Secondly, NUAR will add costs and stifle competition. The Government claim that NUAR will deliver significant benefits to taxpayers, reduce disruption and prevent damage to underground assets, but the impact assessment ignores the fact that NUAR’s core functions are already provided through the current system—so its expected benefits are vastly overstated. While asset owners, many of whom have not been consulted, will face costs of more than £200 million over the first 10 years, the wholesale publication of asset owners’ entire networks creates commercially sensitive risks, damaging innovation and competition. Combined with the uncertainties about how quickly NUAR can gain a critical mass of users and data, this again calls into question why NUAR does not properly align with and build on the current system but instead smothers competition and harms a successful, growing UK business.
Thirdly, NUAR risks undermining control over sensitive CNI data. Underground assets are integral to critical national infrastructure; protecting them is vital to the UK’s economic and national security. LSBUD deliberately keeps data separate and ensures that data owners remain in full control over who can access their data via a secure exchange platform. NUAR, however, in aiming to provide a single view of all assets, removes providers’ control over their own data—an essential security fail-safe. It would also expand opportunities for malicious actors to target sectors in a variety of ways—for instance, the theft of copper wires from telecom networks.
NUAR shifts control over data access to a centralised government body, with no clear plan for how the data is to be protected from unauthorised access, leading to serious concerns about security and theft. Safe digging is paramount; mandating NUAR will lead to uncertainty, present more health and safety dangers to workers and the public and put critical national infrastructure at risk. These plans require further review. There needs to be, as I have said, greater alignment with industry best practice. Without further consultation, NUAR risks becoming a white elephant that undermines safe digging in the UK and increases risk to infrastructure workers and the public.
I will not go through the amendments individually as the Minister has mentioned what their effect would be, but I will dispel a few myths. The Government have
claimed that NUAR has the overwhelming support of asset owners. In the view of those who briefed me, that is not an accurate reflection of the broadband and telecoms sector in particular; a number of concerns from ISPA members have been raised with the NUAR team around cost and security that have yet to be addressed. This is borne out by the fact that there are notable gaps in the major asset owners in the telecoms sector signed up to NUAR at this time.
Clearly, the noble Viscount is resisting changing the procedure by which these changes are made from negative to affirmative, but I hope I have gone some way to persuade the Committee of the importance of this change to how the NUAR system is put on a statutory footing. He talked about a “handful” of data; the comprehensive nature of the existing system is pretty impressive, and it is a free service, updated on a regular basis, which covers more than 150 asset owners and 98% of high-risk assets. NUAR currently covers only one-third of asset owners. The comparisons are already not to the advantage of NUAR.
I hope the Government will at least, even if they do not agree with these amendments, think twice before proceeding at the speed they seem to be and without the consent or taking on board the concerns of those who are already heavily engaged with Linesearch- beforeUdig who find it pretty satisfactory for their purposes.