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Ms Hewitt: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. It is precisely for that reason that we do not want a single pricing model--nobody with any sense wants that--that would require low-income low users to pay very high subscription charges. It is perfectly possible to have a range of tariff models, as we already have for mobile telephony, to enable low-price or unmetered internet access calls, especially at peak times.
Mr. Taylor: I endorse that point. The competitive market--the result of the Conservative Government's policies--enabled that to happen.
I want to be naughty to the extent of saying that I believe that the Secretary of State's recent referral of the Cable and Wireless-NTL deal was a mistake. It broke the pattern of encouraging substantial competitors to grow in the marketplace. Growth in the cable industry has been based on an aggregation of franchises. The reference gave the wrong signal to the market. We want more competition, not less.
Mr. Wyatt:
On access to the internet for poorer communities and families, does the hon. Gentleman agree that a good precedent was set when we took £3 million from television licence receipts to subsidise the creation of the Open university?
Mr. Taylor:
There is a huge opportunity to be innovative. The hon. Gentleman is one of the more innovative Government Members. Perhaps one day Oftel will take the Independent Television Commission within its bosom and we will get a more rational debate.
Others have emphasised the importance of the on-line world. The figures are hard to verify and can be approximate, but we know that there are about 11 million internet users in the United Kingdom, with 11,000 joining each day. Many more people have access to the net, at work, home or school--about 18.6 million is 40 per cent. of the population. The critical mass is already with us. The rate of growth is astronomical.
Andersen Consulting's figures show that the value of the European internet market could be $430 billion by 2003, with 170 million users, as against $19 billion this year. That represents a growth in the European market from less than 20 per cent. of the size of the United States market this year to 60 per cent. by 2003, which shows how dynamic the European single market is.
There is further expansion because the internet is not a personal computer monopoly. Digital television is moving ahead dramatically, and most exciting of all are the wireless applications and the delivery of messages to mobiles. They are slightly taut messages in stretched second-generation digital but on third-generation mobile we will get the full multimedia impact.
Someone asked what we were doing in the dark, distant days before history began--meaning the previous Government. We were preparing the auctions that the Minister is about to launch. The auction arrangements were already thought through by the Conservative Government, but the trouble with the processes of government is that they move so jolly slowly. They had to move more slowly than we would have liked because of the need to get international agreements on what are known as the UMTS arrangements, so that the system, when it came, could be truly global.
Mr. White:
The hon. Gentleman made such proposals in government but Opposition Front Benchers are now vehemently against them, which shows how far out of touch they are.
Mr. Taylor:
The Opposition's job is always to oppose, whatever the justification. I am not on the Opposition Front Bench, for reasons that we will not go into.
It is important to understand what the Minister thinks she is signing up to in the e-commerce directive--which is based on host-country legislation, as she rightly said--because I understand from a senior member of Directorate-General XV that there are some specific caveats, for example concerning moves by any country to protect its consumers that are justified by public policy or public security. They are pretty big caveats. I hope that we will get some clarification before we sign up because one can drive a coach and horses through home-country control with such caveats in place.
I pressed on the Minister the need to have a trans-departmental authority. She should ensure that home-country control under European directives also applies to the Financial Services and Markets Bill, clause 19 of which creates concerns about the powers taken to regulate internet sites outside the United Kingdom. The conflict needs to be reconciled. There is no doubt that the financial services market is becoming global. I am glad to say that both the Corporation of London and the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists welcome the Bill and are determined to ensure that London plays its full part. We must be careful to base both British and European legislation on sound principles that encourage e-commerce rather than restraining it.
The alarming skills shortage both in the United Kingdom and in the European Union as a whole could hold back many of our good efforts to stimulate the growth of e-commerce.
The Government should show leadership. It is no good for the Prime Minister to say--correctly--that companies that are not entirely on-line in five years' time may well be out of business, when the Government's own target for providing their services on-line is only 50 per cent. by 2005. Is the logical extension that the Government themselves will be out of business by 2005? I doubt that they are saying that, but that is the logic of the situation. There is no excuse for not pushing ahead more quickly.
Mr. Miller:
The hon. Gentleman must distinguish between businesses that need to be at the leading edge and Governments who have to provide services to consumers who currently have limited access. There isa chicken-and-egg argument there, and clearly the Government needs to take action to encourage the growth of access, but it would be improper for them to seek to deliver all their services on-line if all our citizens are not fully wired.
Mr. Taylor:
That is an admirable but not very powerful contribution. The reality is that the Government have to act as a catalyst. The dates set are too lax and the targets set are not realistic. It is as if a large company were to announce that within a year no member of its supply chain would be accepted unless it were capable of dealing on-line in all aspects of its business. Those companies affected get on-line if they want to stay part of the supply chain. Perhaps the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) should talk to theMinister about innovative ways in which public-private partnerships can finance moving to on-line status.
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the Minister have reassured me about the risk that the regulation of investigatory powers legislation that is proposed would undermine what the Department of Trade and Industry is trying to do with this Bill. I take the Minister's word that it will not, and I am more relaxed on the subject.
I also welcome the sunset clause in part I, although I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) that part I is an intrusive element in the Bill. Given that it is included, I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure the House that there will be a proper discussion if the powers that she has retained are ever to be triggered. If so, we can accept the clause in the interests of speed, although my hon. Friend will make a shrewd, tactical judgment on how to progress it through Committee. I do not intend to serve alongside him, because he will do it so well without me.
In part III, I welcome the explicit restriction on key escrow, which is well put. It is hidden away in part III, but at least it is there and it is a key development. Natural concerns arise about whether the Alliance for Electronic Business scheme will be acceptable, but it is the only one being discussed. The more that the Minister can do to review her latest proposals and then give comfort, the better. Certainly, I know that industry is waiting for formal announcements in support.
The Minister should not ignore my intervention in her speech. I say that because I am not sure that she fully took the point. If the Government introduce their scheme with
the private sector, whether business or consumers, as a key escrow system, it may become the de facto standard for others to follow. It is best to be sure that the Government understand what influence they would have on the shape of the market if it were to adopt the wrong approach.
The biggest criticism of the Bill is that it focuses on cryptography. The process of encryption is important, including signatures--I do not underestimate their importance in getting the process going--but there are many other confidence-building measures that can be taken. Some of those 60 points in the earlier report I mentioned should have been slotted in during the consultation period--perhaps when no one was watching--and there would then have been huge excitement when the Bill was introduced, because it would have seemed to encourage electronic business more generally.
If the Government can be consistent about electronic signatures, I hope that we will see dramatic, exciting progress. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton will criticise the lack of other legal changes. I mentioned the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise, because I know that they are working on the issue--that is what worries me. I am interested in the basis on which those organisations are working, because I do not want the Minister to be thrilled to have got the Bill through only to find that the Treasury announces that her system is incompatible with its system. That would not be the first time that had happened.
No time scale is given for the co-ordination of technical solutions for some of the other Government changes. There is also a lack of visibility for Government changes. I hope that the Minister will talk to other Ministers in her Department about the impact of the Bill on international trade agreements, for example, and whether they will be brought on-line in conformity with the Bill.
We also need urgent guidance, although I am not qualified to make comments on it, on how the courts will interpret some of the provisions in the Bill. What will constitute an acceptable signature for the courts? That will have be tested, but the issues include whether a certificate or identity is binding, the reliability of signature processes and technology, and the intent or possession--instead of relying on technical solutions alone. Those are complex issues and I hope that the Minister will at some stage assure the House that she has a grip on them. When the electronic signatures come to be tested in the courts, we do not want to find that the Minister's work is undermined.
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