Lords Make Changes to Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill

The UK House of Lords has made a couple of key amendments to the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill (here), which aims to make it significantly easier, quicker and cheaper for “gigabit-capable” broadband ISPs to access big apartment blocks (MDU) when “rogue landlords” fail to respond.

At present network operators (e.g. Openreach, Virgin Media, Hyperoptic, Cityfibre etc.) often run into difficulty when attempting to contact landlords, such as while requesting permission to install a new service or offering to negotiate a long-term agreement on access (wayleave). Suffice to say that an unresponsive landlord can leave residents trapped on slower connections and the process for tackling this can be disproportionately expensive.

The new bill aims to tackle this via a number of measures, such as a significantly cheaper and faster route for dispute resolution via a new tribunal process. On top of that landlords will also face a greater obligation to help facilitate the deployment of digital infrastructure when they receive a request from their tenants.

Yesterday saw the bill reach the ‘Report‘ stage (here). The government were also defeated as two additional amendments ended up being voted through.

Amendment 1 (Moved by Lord Clement-Jones – LibDem)

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 11, after “premises” insert “(which include premises where a tenant is in exclusive possession)”

NOTE: This amendment would clarify that tenanted premises are included under the provisions of this bill.

Amendment 7 (Moved by Lord Stevenson of Balmacara – Labour)

7: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause – “Review of this Act’s impact on the Electronic Communications Code…”

NOTE: This amendment would require the Secretary of State to commission a review of the impact of this Act on the Electronic Communications Code. This review, which would assess the code’s suitability to support universal access to gigabit-capable broadband by 2025, could make recommendations for future amendments to the code.

The first amendment effectively expands the bill’s scope to include more renters, which is an area that the Government had previously shunned because of a fear that it could result in temporary inhabitants (e.g. lodgers or hostel residents) suddenly gaining significant new power over the infrastructure of a property. The Government’s representative, Baroness Barran, noted that the existing bill “already has within its scope many of those who rent by virtue of the term ‘lessee in occupation’“.

Meanwhile the second amendment forces the Government to review their legislation 6 months after it has become law, albeit while assessing whether or not it is “sufficient to support access to 1 gigabit per second broadband in every premises in the United Kingdom by 2025.” One issue here is that the Government don’t want to force everybody to only take a 1Gbps service as that may hinder some deployments and technology choices.

Baroness Barran (Conservative) said:

“This measure was designed from the outset to be a precision instrument that supports the 10 million people living in apartment blocks in the UK to access better broadband. It is on this point—the idea of better broadband—that I feel I should begin. We are confident that Part 4A orders will be used by operators predominantly to deliver gigabit-capable connections, as we discussed in Committee, but the Bill does not mention gigabit-capable networks. For that matter, it does not mention broadband, 5G or any type of connection. As noble Lords know, 1 gigabit connectivity is not tech-neutral; not all forms of broadband can deliver 1 gigabit per second of connectivity. For example, copper-based superfast connections would not be able to do that.

The Electronic Communications Code, of which the Bill will form a constituent part, does not mention broadband; nor does it mention any connection speed or anything about the technology installed. The Bill and the code are technology-neutral; I believe there was some confusion on this in Committee. To put that another way: the code deals with the how, where and when of deployment, not about what is installed. I am making this point again because technological neutrality is important, as it allows a consumer to get the connectivity they need from the operator they want at the best price.

None of this is to detract from noble Lords’ appetite to ensure that the Government are on track to deliver gigabit-capable connections, which is entirely understandable and reasonable. Many noble Lords will know that there are already ways in which some or all of the amendment’s effects can be achieved without the need for the amendment. I will give three examples.”

The bill will now go to a third reading in the House of Lords, before returning back for a final series of debates in the House of Commons. We suspect that the Government may then end up throwing out some of the amendments agreed by the Lords.