12 Oct 2004 : Column 1WH
Westminster Hall
Tuesday 12 October 2004
[Mr. Roger Gale in the Chair]
Public Telephones
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Gillian Merron.]
9.30 am
Mr. Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD): I am very pleased to have the opportunity to bring the matter of public telephones to the Minister's attention and to give him the chance to reply to a number of points. It is also a pleasure to see so many hon. Members here today; they obviously have the interests of their constituents at heart.
At the end of August, a constituent telephoned me—whether from a phone box I know not—to draw to my attention to the notice in a phone box in Ponfaen, a small village at the top of Honddu valley in the community of Merthyr Cynog in my constituency, indicating that British Telecom wished to close that facility unless objections were made. At the time, I thought it was an ad hoc proposal, but after further investigation it turns out that BT wishes substantially to restructure its payphones business. Indeed, BT proposes the closure of 33,000 of the 77,000 phone boxes throughout the country. By no means would it have been it a one-off closure.
As a result of that telephone call, I wrote to all the community councils in my constituency, telling them that BT might propose closing the public telephones in their areas and that they should participate in the consultation. I indicated that if they wanted to keep their payphones, it was essential that they make representations.
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD): It is important to make clear that community councils, parish councils and planning authorities have an absolute veto over such closures. The message has to be got across that it is not one of those consultations that just goes into the ether. If the councils have objections and make them, those objections stand.
Mr. Williams : My hon. Friend makes a good point; I conveyed that to the community and town councils in my area. However, BT did not make it clear during the consultation.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con): The hon. Gentleman may be aware that Ofcom is considering whether to remove that veto. Does he agree that if the veto were removed, it would be to the detriment of all our communities?
Mr. Williams : Yes; I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. Ofcom is going to look once more at the universal service obligation. This question comes round once every three or four years. Previously, Oftel
12 Oct 2004 : Column 2WH
was responsible, but the report that resulted from that consultation showed that only 17 people replied to it. I urge Ofcom, as Oftel has become, to ensure that consultation on alterations to the universal service obligation is much wider and more proactive. It would be a sad state of affairs if town and community councils, and parish councils in England, lost the ability to object, even if there were substance to their objections.
Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall) (LD): I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. As he rightly says, the review of the universal service obligation is critical. Does he not think it extraordinary that BT is pre-empting the review and pushing ahead with the decimation of the payphone network just as the review is taking place?
Mr. Williams : I thank my hon. Friend for that. It seems untimely that a major restructuring of the payphone business is being suggested at the same time as Ofcom is consulting on the future of the universal service obligation. If it is BT's intention to more than decimate its service, it might have been wise to wait until after the review. Some believe that people's ability to object may be limited.
The Minister for Energy and E-Commerce (Mr. Mike O'Brien) : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I think that Ofcom would find some of the things that have been said surprising. Although it is reviewing the public service obligation, it is not, as I understand it, considering removing the veto by local authorities.
Mr. Williams : I am very pleased to be reassured by the Minister on that point. However, I presume that the fact that the universal service obligation is to be reviewed means that everything is open. Certainly, we will be making representations on the basis that our power of veto will not be removed. In my constituency, some 114 for the 272 payphones are proposed for closure. I am concerned about BT's decision to remove such a substantial number of payphones not only from my constituency in Wales but throughout the country. Those phones can be essential, even life-saving.
Let me give an example; the economy of the Llanwrtyd Wells area in my constituency—which has no mobile phone coverage at all—is dependent on forestry. When a life-threatening accident took place there, it was only because the local people knew the location of a payphone box and were able to get to it quickly that they were able to summon an air ambulance to take the victim to hospital. That saved his life.
Mr. Michael Moore (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) (LD): I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and congratulate him on securing this important debate. It seems that BT has failed to make a specific economic case against any individual kiosk, but it has blamed mobile phones for cutting the business from under its feet. Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the key issues is that mobile phone coverage in rural areas is extremely patchy and that emergency, life-saving phone calls must be allowed to continue? For that reason, the kiosks need to remain.
Mr. Williams : I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. I am sure that all of us who represent rural areas
12 Oct 2004 : Column 3WH
will vouch for that experience. I do not consider that payphone boxes are the only solution to the problem; I am taking part in a campaign in my constituency to improve the coverage of mobile phones. However, that does not do away with the need for payphone boxes. One could argue that we do not need payphone boxes in town where mobile phone coverage is perfect, but we certainly do. Getting a good communication system depends on bringing together all the available technology.
Matthew Green (Ludlow) (LD): I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Is not the economic argument that is used against many of our rural phone boxes the same as that used for the lack of improvement to mobile phone coverage? Providers are saying that they cannot be bothered to go into rural areas because it does not make them enough money. They must accept that rural areas need to have a service delivered one way or another.
Mr. Williams : My hon. Friend shares a constituency boundary with me in the Teme valley, a very remote area. Sometimes, in winter, it is entirely cut off from vehicular traffic. A sound communication system, using all the technologies that are available, is essential for people living in such areas; that is one of the issues that I shall come on to. Everybody expects a good communication system, and without one we will not be able to encourage young people to make their homes in such areas and to work there.
Andrew George (St. Ives) (LD): Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Williams : I will, although I hope to return to the first page of my remarks soon.
Andrew George : I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I am sure that we will allow him to make progress. It is not simply a question of offering a choice of a variety of services. In Cornwall, we are about to lose up to 200 of 1,000 payphone boxes. That will have a significant impact. In the remote rural areas in my constituency, including the Isles of Scilly, a lot of those boxes are used by people who have no choice. They do not have mobile phones and they do not have phones at home. Social policy should be the justification for keeping them.
Mr. Williams : My hon. Friend is right. He brings his great experience of island dwellers—something that I do not have—to the debate. As he says, public telephone boxes were put under a universal service obligation at the time of privatisation because it was anticipated that not everybody would have a land-line, but thought that everybody should have access to communications. A number of people either do not have land-lines or have land-lines on systems that are not sound, which often break down. Our experience is that it now takes longer than ever to get BT to undertake those repairs.
I want to bring to the Minister's attention the fact that payboxes are used by up to 8,000 children a year to call
12 Oct 2004 : Column 4WH
abuse lines. Those children do not want to use the telephones in their homes because they are concerned that they will be overheard or that their parents, or whoever may be abusing them, could trace those calls. That is another reason why there should be access to public call boxes.
People who live in rural areas believe that they are losing services. It is an incremental process, but the quality of their lives is getting lower. There is no incentive to encourage people to stay in rural areas and find work or create jobs and employment if they do not have a good communications system. Often, people who have made money in other areas come to rural areas and, with the wealth that they have generated elsewhere, access services that are outside the means of local people. To take away payphone boxes would be another example of that problem. As a responsible company that is bound by the universal service imperative, BT has every obligation to ensure that that does not happen when it considers removing its payphones.
I have met and talked extensively with BT and have brought representatives of community councils from my constituency to talk to BT, and representatives of other local authorities. So far, I have no reason to doubt BT's intention to make the consultation exercise a genuine one. BT has made it clear to me that if objections are received through the local planning authority, it will have no alternative but to keep the relevant payphones open. That point has been raised by other Members, but has not been made clear.
I know that there has been a problem in national parks, although I have yet to check with my national park whether—
Mr. Adrian Flook (Taunton) (Con): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way.
I was fortunate enough to be able to advise local parishes and planning authorities in my part of Somerset of their right of veto, which we heard about earlier, and thereby save 21 boxes. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Exmoor national park authority was not notified of that process by British Telecom because BT did not recognise it as a local planning authority? That is quite amazing. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would have been better if BT had been aware of how its own consultation process works?
Mr. Williams : I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that point, which he raised with me before the debate. I did not check the situation with my national park authority, although I understand that all objections should go through the planning department of Powys county council. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has secured the retention of 21 payphones in his constituency.
I have information that although Members of Parliament were all consulted on this matter, Assembly Members were not individually consulted. Perhaps BT does not recognise the existence of national parks or the Welsh Assembly. I have raised this matter with BT and it has now had meetings with representatives of the National Assembly for Wales; it has rectified the problem, albeit at a late stage in the consultation.
12 Oct 2004 : Column 5WH
The universal service obligation was imposed on BT in 1984 as a means of ensuring that the monopoly that the company enjoyed at the time of privatisation and the imminent commercial benefits of privatisation were balanced with a number of the responsibilities that BT had held as a state-owned company. One of those responsibilities was to provide a certain amount of payphone coverage throughout the country as an alternative to land-lines.
BT is still by far the largest provider of land-lines in the UK, and it is only right that that monopoly should be accompanied by a certain degree of corporate responsibility. However, the changing nature of the telecoms industry since privatisation and the huge surge in mobile phone usage over the past five years have affected the profitability of payphones and rendered certain aspects of BT's obligation unsustainable.
BT Payphones is a wholly independent subsidiary of the BT group, responsible for its own budgets and revenue flows and, we are told, unable to seek subsidies from other more successful subsidiaries of the business. I am not sure whether that is the case; perhaps the Minister can help us by explaining that in relation to competition policy. BT Payphones are already cross-subsiding some of the loss-making payphones with the more profitable ones. However, the losses are such that BT predicts that if nothing is done to restructure the business, the whole BT payphone network could be at risk. BT has made that claim, and I take it in good faith, but perhaps the Minister could address the issue. Such a situation would not be in anyone's interests, and it is imperative that something be done to redress the balance of responsibilities, should BT's dire warnings prove substantial.
The universal service obligation is reviewed every three to five years, to take account of the changing nature of the market. Within the next month or so, Ofcom will launch its first review. The last was carried out by Oftel, and few people responded to the consultation. Ofcom is likely to take into consideration the distortion to the payphone market created by mobile phone technology. Although it is impossible to pre-empt the outcome of the consultation, it is not unreasonable to expect the rules and regulations to be somewhat relaxed to save the company and its finances.
As the regulations now stand, BT is entitled to remove any payphone where there is another within 100 m. If, as is often the case in rural communities, there is no other payphone within 10 miles, let alone 100 m, BT has to alert the local authorities and consult the public by placing a notice in the payphone. As we know, people have a period of time in which to object, and any objections that go through the local planning authority are a veto on the closure.
In our case, consultation was taken through August. I made representations to BT and the period was extended into September, because even the most active local authorities are sometimes not in a position to carry out the consultation and make representations. The veto achieved by residents and local authorities may be good news in the short term, but it is not a sustainable result in the long term. The local communities in most need of the services, such as those in the very rural areas, stand at the most risk of losing their public call box in the long run.
12 Oct 2004 : Column 6WH
Objections lodged to local authorities because the payphone provides good shelter during a thunderstorm or lights up the centre of the village are not reasonable grounds for keeping payphones open. They do nothing to substantiate the sound objections of those communities that depend on the facilities.
I am concerned that the massive closures are being considered just before the Ofcom consultation has been covered. If, as a result of this or future consultations, rules and regulations surrounding the universal service obligations are relaxed—that is likely to be the case—local communities could stand to lose the payphones that they so badly need.
BT can do more to have dialogues with local authorities, not only at the time of proposed closures, but in the interregnum periods, to find out ways in which such services can be maintained. Local authorities are already looking for ways in which they can keep post offices open, but payphone facilities should also be included. Many local residents groups and community councils in Wales already take it upon themselves to clean and maintain local payphones and it is likely that many local authorities would welcome the opportunity of added responsibilities if they valued the presence of payphones themselves. That would obviously be something that local authorities would have to take into consideration and they would also have to understand the costs involved. It is not for us to indicate what responsibilities local authorities might wish to take on, but this is an opportunity for us to ensure that local authorities have the necessary powers.
Andrew George : What my hon. Friend has not explained so far is that local authorities cannot, at this stage, argue with BT with regard to its policy and the reason why that policy undermines the viability of the boxes themselves. The minimum charge is 30p and often people without any change have a lot of coinage swallowed up. It is an expensive option and a lot of people lose a lot of money trying to use phone boxes, as I discovered recently on St. Agnes on the Isles of Scilly. Local authorities cannot properly engage with BT's policy and the expensive nature of the service.
Mr. Williams : I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. It reinforces the point that I am making to the Minister, which is that BT should be in consultation with local authorities and the Local Government Association on these matters. My information is that BT has not consulted as fully as it could with local authorities or local authority associations. The process would be of benefit to BT and would indicate how local authorities see the opportunities for making the service more substantial and more sustainable.
As I understand it, the working partnerships or subsidies by local authorities are currently illegal under privatisation legislation. It is essential that the Government look again at legislation surrounding competition law to allow those sustainable partnerships to take place. A partnership could take many forms and it is not up to me today to indicate what form it would take. That is best determined at local level. For instance, local authorities could explore the option of paying BT a fixed rental to cover the cost of the network. BT could enter into any number of arrangements with local authorities.
12 Oct 2004 : Column 7WH
My reservation, as far as BT Payphones is concerned, is not that BT is being unreasonable in wanting to restructure its business, run a successful company and be responsible to its shareholders in a loss-making market. My grievances are that, as a business that prides itself on innovation, BT has been particularly lacking in innovation when it comes to finding solutions to this problem. It embarked on a programme of draconian action, decreeing that it was going to cut the payphone network by almost half in terms of the existing coverage, without exploring any options on a more local level to show its willingness to sustain this vital service and honour its duty under the universal service obligation.
BT has made little or no attempt to contact local government associations, which are ideally placed to identify which options would be most keenly supported by certain authorities. Nor did it make any effort, for the purpose of finding a workable solution, to contact district and borough councils, which dispose of the kind of funding that would realistically be needed to undertake such partnerships. Such a partnership would tie in particularly well with the functions of local authorities in promoting tourism in their area. In future, BT should therefore be urged to explore such options with local authorities and appropriate bodies before it makes planned closures.
My purpose today is to ensure that rural areas have viable communication systems. As in towns, some of that system will be provided by public call boxes, some by mobile phones and some by land-lines. The elimination of public call boxes will lead to social exclusion, danger to residents and visitors alike, and to large swathes of the countryside becoming less attractive places for young people to work and set up home. Certainty about the continuation of land-line provision would be beneficial, because if payphones are being undermined by changes in the universal service obligation, a number of us are concerned about the long-term effect of that on the provision of land-lines to very remote rural areas. Being certain about land-line provision, and an improvement in mobile phone coverage, would contribute to the provision of a satisfactory communication system.
I hope that the Government will use their influence to encourage mobile phone operators to extend their coverage and work with local authorities—especially in national parks—to identify safe and satisfactory sites for relay masts. Even with all the profitable avenues explored, the market will eventually fail to maintain phone boxes that are vital to vulnerable communities.
The universal service obligation is currently being carried by BT Payphones cross-subsidising their socially important boxes from those situated in more densely populated areas. At the moment it is illegal for local authorities to support that infrastructure because at the time of privatisation it was seen as unfair to any competition. That point no longer stands; no new public call boxes are springing up in rural areas.
The problem is to maintain the really important phone boxes as part of an overall system that includes land-lines and mobiles. The way forward is to encourage private and public partnerships, in which the private sector provides technology and the public sector
12 Oct 2004 : Column 8WH
integrates services such as cash collection by means of existing employees. In order to allow this vital public service to continue to serve the community, I call on the Government to use their powers to allow such partnerships to flourish.
Mr. Roger Gale (in the Chair): Order. I intend, as is customary, to call for the winding-up speeches at 10.30. Six hon. Members have indicated that they wish to speak, and hon. Members can do their own sums. If each Member speaks for roughly five minutes, everyone who wishes to speak will be called.
9.56 am
Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con): I thank the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) for initiating this important debate. I was first alerted to the fact that BT was engaged in a major national cull of public payphone boxes by the good people of Edenbridge in my constituency, where the town positively erupted on BT's disclosure that it was going to try to remove approximately one third—four out of 13—of the payphones from that town. I took up the issue with the chief executive of BT and he gave me an extremely interesting—and what I found to be an extraordinary—reply:
"If the local community and council still feel that the retention of the payphones is an issue, we could offer to keep them where they are, however we would need some contribution from a third party."
Mr. Ben Verwaayan, in this letter to me of 12 July, made no reference whatever to the supposed veto in the consultation. He was advancing a policy on behalf of BT that amounted to "Pay up or lose it".
Mr. Verwaayan went on to quote BT's prices, call box by call box, for allowing us to keep our payphones in Edenbridge. The cheapest was £311 a year and the most expensive was £1,284 a year. Quite how Mr. Verwaayan made his calculations was never revealed, but I have to say that I found that an extraordinary policy from a company that is supposedly under a public service obligation.
The pay-up-or-lose-it policy did not appear to endure long within BT because a matter of hours before I was due to appear on national television to discuss the issue, the director of BT Payphones, Mr. Paul Hendron, came pounding round to see me in the House of Commons and offered me a completely different proposition. As the two local authorities concerned—Sevenoaks district council and Edenbridge town council—had objected, he proposed that he would not override their objections and said that the payphones could remain. I asked him to repeat that assurance. He did. I asked him to repeat it again. He did, and I hold BT to the triple assurance that I have been given.
It may interest hon. Members to learn that Mr. Hendron proved to be very informative about the situation in my constituency. I did not know how many payphones BT had. He told me that there were 120 in my constituency. I certainly did not know how many, in BT's view, were making losses. He told me that 44 payphones—about one third—were. He then gave me an interesting computer-printed, payphone-by-payphone schedule of those 44, which BT had divided into two categories. One category was headed "Social"
12 Oct 2004 : Column 9WH
and included 29 payphones, all of which were making losses. BT said that it would keep them for the time being. The other category was headed "Removals" and listed the other 15 of the 44 loss-making payphones, all of which BT was trying to remove. It was illuminating information, and I have sent it to all the local authorities.
The problem that I, the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire and other hon. Members face in our constituencies reflects the national policy issue, which is whether there should continue to be a national system of public payphones. Ultimately, it is a matter not for Ofcom but for the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I put this central issue to the Secretary of State on 12 August, when I asked:
"please could you tell me whether or not it is the Government's policy that there should continue to be a comprehensive network of public payphones available in Britain. If so, please tell me what action the Government will take to ensure this."
The response I received from the Secretary of State was totally inadequate. On 27 August, she replied that she was sorry to hear of my concerns and that the matters raised were the responsibility of the Office of Communications, Ofcom, as the independent regulator acting under the terms of the Office of Communications Act 2002 and the Communications Act 2003. That was a total abdication of responsibility. It is time that the Government came clean about whether their policy is that there should continue to be a national system of public payphones. I expect the Minister in response to this debate to come clean on that fundamental point of Government policy.
10.2 am
Mr. Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) on securing this important debate.
Despite the fall in usage, largely due to mobile phones, payphones are still widely used. In many rural areas such as my constituency, mobile phone reception is patchy and access to a payphone in an emergency is still important. I emphasise the point made by my hon. Friend that children who need to make a call without their parents knowing often use a payphone. ChildLine notes that many of the calls that it receives from the victims of child abuse are made from payphones. Payphones are still important, and as with many emergency services, we appreciate payphones only when we need them.
BT wants to remove 52 payphones from my constituency, and the Kintyre peninsula seems to have been singled out for particular attention. If BT gets its way, there will be no payphone on the A83 down the west side of the peninsula between the village of Muasdale and the town of Campbeltown, a distance of 15 miles. Glenbarr, Bellochantuy, Tangy and Kilkenzie will all be left without a payphone. On the east side of the peninsula, if BT gets its way, there will be no payphone on the 11-mile stretch of road between Peninver and Carradale. The villages of Saddell and Torrisdale are to lose their payphones, and that will leave drivers who break down with a long walk, as mobile phone reception in that area is poor.
12 Oct 2004 : Column 10WH
BT makes the points that payphone usage has declined and that the payphones on its hitlist are making losses. It is important to note, however, that BT has a universal service obligation and that its shareholders knew this when they bought shares in the company. They went into it with their eyes open.
The veto held by local planning authorities and community and parish councils is important. I was pleased to hear the Minister's intervention, and I hope that in his winding-up speech he will provide an absolute assurance that the veto will remain when Ofcom reviews the communications industry later this year.
I note from BT's correspondence that it claims that the Competition Act 1998 means that its payphone business as a whole must break even so that users of busy payphones subsidise users of little-used ones. However, Ofcom's direction designates BT as the universal service provider, not BT Payphones, which makes BT's insistence that BT Payphones cannot be subsidised from the rest of the BT business a little dubious. Ofcom should investigate BT's claim during the review, and I hope that the outcome will be that BT can subsidise its payphone business from the rest of its business.
It is vital that a council's right of veto remains. By the process that Ofcom has put in place for objections to the removal of payphones, notices are posted on payphones giving a 42-day notice period for users to send an objection to the local council. However, the same 42-day notice period also applies for the council to submit an objection to BT. That clearly gives the council no time to consider objections that the public make. We need two notice periods; the first in which users can object to the council, followed by a further period in which the council can consider those objections and put in a submission to BT.
In my area, BT seems to have found difficulties identifying which community councils have been affected. Ofcom's order allows BT to ask the local planning authority to forward the notice to the community council, but there is an important question; when does the 42-day period start? In my area, BT voluntarily extended the consultation period, but it should be made clear in the rules that the period should start when the community council actually receives the notice from BT.
The right of community and parish councils to veto the removal of the last payphone is a vital safeguard, otherwise large swathes of rural Britain will be left without a payphone, with dire consequences in an emergency.
10.7 am
Mr. Robert Key (Salisbury) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) on his good fortune in the ballot, which secured this debate. In my constituency, there are more than 100 villages outside Salisbury, and 181 payphones. I was notified by British Telecom on 21 June that it planned to remove 23 telephones, that it would maintain 124 profitable ones and that it was prepared to keep 34 loss-making ones.
So far, the debate has been rather unfair to BT, and I shall say why I think that that is the case before suggesting what the challenge really is. The consultation undertaken by BT as a universal service provider was
12 Oct 2004 : Column 11WH
exemplary, and there is no question but that it fulfilled its obligation to ensure that all the local planning authorities and parish councils were aware of what was proposed. However, the statistics are revealing, and when I went through the figures with which BT provided me, I realised that there was a problem. Among the telephones that BT proposed to remove, several were in areas where one could not get the alternative mobile service. That is the real problem. I wrote to the head of public and parliamentary affairs on 1 July, but when I received a response 11 weeks later my question on that particular conundrum was not answered.
It is fair enough to point out that the public service obligation should be met more widely than by BT alone. Of course it is true that when it took up the challenge and was privatised, BT was all that there was. Now there is a complete change in communications, and the mobile industry is coming forward. For obvious commercial reasons, the mobile industry does not want to have a public service obligation, and who can blame it? But that means that someone must decide whether we really want to have available a universal service of some sort. That all comes down to who will pay the subsidy; that is the bottom line. It is not entirely fair to blame BT for that.
Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD): The hon. Gentleman is making an important point, but does there have to be a subsidy? Someone travelling outside the UK can access any service provider on their roaming service, but in the UK we have the frustration of being told that there is a signal but we are not allowed to access it because of an exclusive contract. Should not Ofcom review that?
Mr. Key : Of course it should. It is important that it does. That is an option, but who should actually pay? It is all very well saying, as BT does, that there are all sorts of other things, such as advertising. Frankly, that is not a realistic proposition. On any day, only three people and 65 cows will walk past an advertisement on a phone box in Alvediston.
Local people might subsidise the service through the council tax, but the maintenance costs are substantial. BT gave me the service costs of the boxes, and I was surprised at the expense involved. The average cost of maintaining a payphone is £1,650 a year. That is a substantial sum if one has only a few pence a day. I am sure that the situation is not quite as bad as in the old days of pressing buttons A and B and a large copper penny going in—clunk—but it is an expensive proposition.
Perhaps the Government should subsidise payphones as a public service. They will ask why they should. Perhaps there should be premium rates, but why should people in rural areas have to pay two or three times as much per call, particularly at a time when BT has been reducing the actual call cost, extending the time available—its preferred policy—or advertising? This is a real problem, and the Government have an opportunity to encourage Ofcom to think more radically than it has.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I do not want to hog the floor, as many other people wish to speak. My main point is that we should
12 Oct 2004 : Column 12WH
not just blame BT. The problem exists because of technological change, and Ofcom must come up with some imaginative proposals for the Government to review and come to a conclusion on. That is the right way forward if we are to ensure that there is universal provision. It is a great irony, at a time when international as well as national communications have never been more available to people, that there is a real problem of who will pay for the parts of the United Kingdom that have a sparse population and are, therefore, an unattractive commercial proposition.
10.12 am
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD): I very much welcome this debate and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) on securing it. It has highlighted an important issue. Like him, I expect many phone box closures in my constituency. BT has proposed closing more than one third of them—39 phone boxes. On one 25-mile stretch of road from Alford to the Lecht, it wants to reduce the number of phone boxes from eight to one. I wonder whether it has taken into account in its modelling the knock-on effect of closing the one next door, or does it look at each one in isolation in the current network? That is an important aspect that it needs carefully to consider.
As I said in an intervention, it is important to get across the message in respect of the veto that community councils and planning authorities have. Many constituents meet me in the street and tell me that they object to a phone box going, or to BT reneging on and changing its mind about what they thought was an implicit promise at privatisation that the network would be maintained, but they ask, "What is the point of writing?" The point is that if they write to their community council and if the community council represents their views, the phone box will not close. As it is a rare consultation in which it is still the case that objections are absolute if they come through the right means, this debate is very important in highlighting to people that that veto exists. In Scotland, particularly, the fact that the deadline has been extended to 22 October gives people the chance to get their objections in now that the cycle of meetings is back on.
The fundamental part of this debate is the conundrum that although in a sparsely populated area a phone box will be more difficult to maintain and there will be fewer users, it is in the sparsely populated area that a phone box is more of a lifeline. The fact that it is not economic does not reduce its lifeline potential. As has been said, it is important to take into account the lack of mobile phone coverage and the fact that many people use pay-as-you-go mobile phones. In an emergency, if they have run out of pay-as-you-go, there is the phone box.
The stretch of road that I mentioned leads to a ski resort. In bad weather in the winter, it is important to have a safety net.
Matthew Green : An important point about safety is that the Ordnance Survey maps used by hill walkers show where payphones are. Most people will use the same maps over the next five to 10 years—they do not buy maps that frequently—and if a lot of phone boxes
12 Oct 2004 : Column 13WH
are removed, they may well go down a hillside to what they believe is the nearest box and discover that there are none there. That could lead to people losing their lives.
Sir Robert Smith : That is an extremely important point. To be fair, I think that BT contacted Members in Scotland during the consultation to let us know, but the local authorities feel aggrieved at how they were approached. They were not approached formally, through the chief executive, and had to spend ages trying to decipher and make usable the maps with which they were provided. Although Ordnance Survey maps might have payphones marked on them, my local authority felt that the BT maps were not up to scratch.
One of the questions addressed in the question and answer sheet that was provided to community councils was:
"Will you be maintaining payphones where there is poor mobile coverage?"
"Whilst we are currently working with mobile operators to improve their coverage, we cannot be held responsible for their blackspot areas."
However, BT can be held responsible for finding out where those areas are and, from that, identifying which phone boxes provide a vital function in filling that blackspot. That is an important part of the feedback loop.
I finish by reinforcing the point that the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) made about going forward with the USO and hearing the Government's plan to protect such a vital network. In the case of post offices, the Government have had to intervene to protect rural areas. There is a concern that rural areas are being neglected. Almost by definition, the USO exists because people are not confident that the market will provide the service. On the whole the USO will have to be paid for and it is important that we should pin that down. I am slightly concerned that we are using the average cost of a phone box. Presumably the marginal cost is crucial, because there will be overheads whether or not there are a lot of phone boxes in urban areas. In the consultation by Ofcom, it is important that we remember the implicit promise both that universal services would still be protected when markets were brought to bear and that rural areas in particular would be protected from the damage of competition.
Richard Younger-Ross (Teignbridge) (LD): Briefly, does my hon. Friend agree that the industry, rather than the taxpayer, should bear the costs?
Sir Robert Smith : That is a question that is still to be considered. In the end, the costs have to be paid. In some universal services the taxpayer picks up the cost, but in other cases, such as energy, the user gets the universal service through cross-subsidy. There is probably a serious debate to be had on whether the cross-subsidising unit is too small. Is it wrong that the phone boxes are cross-subsidising? Since the industry was privatised and there was meant to be a burden on one player, perhaps all the players operating in the market could be levied to ensure that the universal service is maintained, as in the potential legislation on the postal service. However, it is extremely important to establish
12 Oct 2004 : Column 14WH
in the consultation that rural areas deserve to be connected to the rest of the United Kingdom and that the universal service must be protected.
10.18 am
Mr. Peter Atkinson (Hexham) (Con): I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) on bringing forward this important debate. It is particularly relevant to my constituency, which is one of the most sparsely populated in England, and to the north-east of England as a whole, where some 700 phone boxes are threatened by BT. However, I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) said: we are not here to attack BT all the time. BT inherited a legacy, but technological change has made that legacy hard to maintain. It is right that we should address our comments not only to the Minister—there has to be Government direction—but to Ofcom, because it is up to Ofcom to come up with a proper solution.
The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) talked about the significance of public call boxes in rural areas. Like him, I am concerned that the boxes that are being targeted in my constituency are situated where there is no mobile phone coverage at all. It is utterly wrong that all forms of telecommunication should be removed from those areas.
Part of the solution lies with mobile phone coverage. Parts of some substantial communities in my constituency still have no mobile phone coverage because the mobile phone companies argue that there is not enough revenue from them. The companies generally do not want the expense of putting up masts, although some do, and that is the irritating thing. For instance, when the disastrous foot and mouth epidemic hit my constituency—particularly in the part of it in which mobile phone and, indeed, television coverage is very poor—I noticed that some vets and Ministry officials had three mobile phones, because if they could not get reception on O2, they might get it on Orange and if they could not get it on Orange, they might get it on Vodafone. It seems to me that one of the keys to solving that problem is giving our mobile phones the ability to roam as they do abroad. That would extend the coverage of mobile phones hugely.
The Minister has a responsibility to crack the problem. The veto that community councils have about the removal of phone boxes, while existing, will in reality become complete nonsense. It will not be possible for a community council to say no to the removal of a hugely loss-making service. It defies belief that a community council will be able to maintain that power. So we need new solutions and the matter requires the intervention of the Minister. It requires Ofcom to come up with some imaginative solutions about the future.
10.21 am
Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire) (LD): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) on making what was undoubtedly the best speech about public telephones that I have ever heard in this Chamber.
I will talk specifically about my constituency, because my hon. Friend made the points about Wales as a whole. Montgomeryshire stands to lose 91 of its 210
12 Oct 2004 : Column 15WH
payphones—more than one third of the network. I acknowledge that BT faces great financial pressures with regard to those payphones and that the advance of mobile phone technology has had a negative impact on public payphone usage. However, to use that as a justification for eliminating public payphone provision in parts of Montgomeryshire would be like the Royal Mail cutting some of its rural postal deliveries on the basis that many people use e-mail and so do not need a postal service anymore.
Therefore, I ask that BT be sensitive to the peculiarities of our, and other, rural regions. Under current plans, Powys and Montgomeryshire will lose more phone boxes than any other region in Wales. As much of Montgomeryshire is not covered by mobile phone networks, it seems clear that those regions have a particular need to maintain phone boxes.
As we heard, public payphones are a vital means of contact in cases of emergency. In fact, when I had what nearly amounted to a fatal accident in 1998, it was in an area with no mobile phone reception, so it was a close call. Had the accident been any worse, my chances of survival would have been so marginal that a payphone could have made the difference between life and death. Therefore, I speak from experience.
On some routes in Powys, it is possible to travel for 20 miles without a usable phone signal. The removal of public payphones will create communication black holes in Montgomeryshire that are beyond the range of mobile phones. In my judgment, and from my experience, that will inevitably lead to some loss of life—though not in large numbers—and definite suffering in emergency situations. I do not think that those blind spots are acceptable.
The good news is that British Telecom does not find those blind spots acceptable either. It commented recently that:
"the Provision of Service guidelines indicate that we provide public telephone service to any member of a community who does not have access to a landline or mobile telephone".
In that respect, much of Montgomeryshire—indeed, much of mid-Wales—must qualify. I hope that BT will take that into consideration.
In fact, there is a case for increasing the number of phone boxes, not reducing it. I will be satisfied if BT maintains the number of call boxes in areas where mobile phone coverage is poor or non-existent. Naturally, BT will cite economic reasons for the reduction. I was interested in what my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. Reid) said about whether it is the payphone part of the company, or BT as a whole, that needs to break even. We have been told that it is the payphone side. Will the Minister clarify which is the case?
I have received many letters of protest about BT's plans from councils such as Penybontfawr community council, Machynlleth town council and Cadfarch community council. Particular representations have been made about the removal of the phone kiosk facility in Hirnant. It is a small community set in a deep narrow valley and there is no hope of getting mobile phone coverage in that area. If the BT payphone is removed, there will be no access to a payphone for a minimum of
12 Oct 2004 : Column 16WH
two and a half miles in any direction. Llanfihangel residents consider their phone box a lifeline, again because there is no mobile phone coverage. Those examples are typical throughout my constituency.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire highlighted the importance of payphones for child protection. Even when there are mobile phone signals, one must accept that the payphone is sometimes a lifeline between children in need and those who can help them.
Ultimately, the problem is that a private company is charged with providing what is, in essence, a public service. Our task is to reconcile BT's financial needs with the provision of adequate communications coverage for the people of Montgomeryshire. However, I thank BT for attending a useful meeting with my hon. Friend and me on 15 October, in which we were reassured that reasonable objections to payphone closures will be taken seriously and will trigger reconsideration. We were also told that BT will not remove any payphone without the agreement of the local council. We hope that BT will stick to its word.
I seek from the Government progressive debate with all the stakeholders. BT has a long-established reputation in Montgomeryshire, and the local community is generally supportive of the firm's activities in mid-Wales. So far, BT has been responsive to our questions and points, for which I thank it again. If it interacts closely with local communities in my constituency, as it has said it would, I am sure that the issue can be resolved happily. All I ask is that the Minister assures us that, if there is an impasse, or if I and other right hon. and hon. Members have serious concerns, he will be willing to hold discussions that seek to resolve those issues in the interests of the local community.
10.27 am
Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD): I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams.) The number and range of speeches have shown that this is a very live issue that is causing much concern, although, to be honest, I am somewhat surprised by the lack of participation of Labour Members, apart from the Minister. I cannot believe that not one of the 400-odd Labour Members is concerned about their phone box closures. For those who have expressed concern, there are several key issues.
In my case, BT and the local manager informed me before the notices went out that the consultation was about to begin. To be fair, whatever the criticisms about what is proposed, BT has gone through the process fairly well, although I do not believe that it widely advertised the right of veto, which would have seriously undermined its objectives and is a right that people should be aware of. In some cases, there probably will be no objection. One constituent phoned me to say, "Thank God they are finally closing that phone box. It is continually being vandalised and is a target for all sorts of other problems." Some closures will therefore be acceptable, but others will cause considerable concern.
Some of BT's arguments are a little disturbing. The first and most obvious argument relates to the development of mobile phones and the implication that,
12 Oct 2004 : Column 17WH
as most people have a mobile phone, it is reasonable to review the provision of public phone boxes. As has been said, the irony is that BT is removing most of the boxes from rural areas where mobile phone coverage is weakest, which destroys the validity of that argument.
I do not believe that roaming resolves the issue, but it is a central point in any case. The protection of the exclusive contract has run its course, whatever the original justification for it. I understand that Ofcom is reviewing it. Given that most people have used roaming outside the United Kingdom, they will become more and more irritated by their inability to access roaming in the UK. Ofcom should address that issue. I would be interested to know if the Government have a particular view on the issue, which is important.
Another issue is that of emergency calls. BT says that only 7 per cent. of 999 calls come from phone boxes. I do not know how many 999 calls there are, but I suspect that 7 per cent. of a large number is still a large number. It could also be a matter of life and death. Are we saying that, for commercial reasons, 7 per cent. of the population can die in an emergency? That cannot be acceptable.
Something that falls short of a 999 emergency, such as a car breakdown or a missed rendezvous, is a personal emergency. It is an embarrassment, or a cause of confusion. People will worry and the person concerned will want to make contact. One would not dial 999 to say, "Can you tell my mother I've missed the bus?" It is not a 999 issue, but it is important for a mother waiting for a 14-year-old girl. That is when call boxes are really useful.
British Telecom acknowledges that the biggest users of public payphones are in the 14 to 24 age group—the most vulnerable people. Those telephones are also used by callers to ChildLine, for all kinds of reasons, in urban as well as in rural areas. Of course, it cannot be argued that every phone box must be protected just in case a child is about to be abused in the neighbourhood. However, removal seems a matter of real concern.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) made an important point about Ordnance Survey maps. The marking of important services on those maps is part of a long and hallowed tradition. That is not to argue that, because something is on an Ordnance Survey map, it must never be removed, but, particularly in rural areas where people are walking, hiking or travelling in other ways, the comprehensive withdrawal of the services in question, as opposed to the occasional withdrawal and the warning that goes with it, destroys the value of such maps.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD): If one starts from the premise that what is needed is a publicly accessible emergency communication system across rural areas—setting aside the commercial considerations—one will start with a map not entirely dissimilar from the present one. If we take a social view of the importance of local phone boxes, we start from the right premise. If we take a commercial view, we start from the wrong premise.
Malcolm Bruce : That is a fair intervention, provided that we add the rider that we mean not only 999 emergencies, but the others that I have identified. My
12 Oct 2004 : Column 18WH
understanding is that BT has said that it could replace call boxes with emergency telephone provision for 999 services. That would be preferable to nothing at all, and would meet the needs of walkers in emergencies, but would not meet the less-than-emergency but still urgent need for call boxes.
The question is: who pays? BT has said that provision should be contained within its call box structure. I understand that there is no legal requirement for that. If the Minister has a view, it will be helpful to know. There is an argument that the industry, including providers besides BT, should be involved, not least because companies whose ambitious, grandiose plans for providing public call boxes all over the country were never fulfilled have left BT as the overwhelmingly major provider. Outside Hull, 1,400 boxes out of 140,000 are provided by someone other than BT.
BT is at present thinking about removing 10,000 of its 138,000 call boxes. As far as I can see, the cuts are pretty evenly distributed. I was interested that every constituency example was remarkably similar. From a Scottish Parliament briefing that I received, I find that, if BT has its way, 10,000 will be removed across Britain. Funnily enough, 1,000 will be removed from Scotland. It so happens that we have 10 per cent. of the population. However, we have 40 per cent. of the land area. The question arises whether the criterion should be where the phone boxes are or where the people are.
There is something not quite right about the approach that is being used. It does not ring true as a genuine call box by call box review. It looks more like an approach based on the need to get rid of 10 per cent. and on finding out where the loss-makers are. The approach to the issue cannot be about profitability. BT has acknowledged that by announcing how many unprofitable boxes it proposes to keep. This is a matter of accessibility.
It may be that some remote call boxes are used only rarely, but that the circumstances of their use make them a vital lifeline. I know of many instances, although this is no comfort to BT, of people using phone boxes in a way that does not generate revenue. It is standard practice in rural parts of my constituency for a child who gets off a bus at the end of the road a mile or two from the farm to phone, let the phone ring three times and hang up. That means, "Mum, I'm waiting for you to pick me up at the phone box." That is an important service. It is not profitable to BT but its withdrawal would cause problems.
Lembit Öpik : I still do that now.
Malcolm Bruce : Frankly, that does not surprise me. One of my constituents even conducted an entire Open university distance learning course from his local phone box. He has now managed to secure that box as a piece of personal heritage from BT, which has been very co-operative.
The spirit in which the debate has been conducted demonstrates genuine concerns and issues. It acknowledges that BT is not being completely philistine and hard-headed about the matter, but recognises that we are not where we should be. The general appeal that I make is for BT to back off just now, to recognise that this is a serious issue, to ask Ofcom to think a little more about the universal service obligation, to deal with the
12 Oct 2004 : Column 19WH
roaming issue—although that does not resolve the matter—and to return to the scheme when people feel that there is cause for rationalisation. My hon. Friends the Members for Argyll and Bute (Mr. Reid) and for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) described specific problems in their areas. Logic tells us that there might be a case for moving every third box if it has very low use, but there is no logic in leaving 11 or 15 miles of road with no box at all.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine and I share one such area. The most celebrated phone box in Aberdeenshire at the moment, for reasons of local campaigning, is at the Kildrummy inn. That used to be in Gordon, is currently in West Aberdeenshire and, thanks to the boundary commission, is returning to Gordon. That makes it a very fought-over and fought-for phone box. The serious point is that it is on the road that leads up to the ski resort. There are boxes every two or three miles, but the proposal is to remove most of them. Logic dictates that there might be a compromise, by which one or two would be removed and two or three kept.
We urge BT to back off and to recognise that the concerns expressed today are serious and genuine. We understand its problem, and there is no lack of constructive engagement with that, but there is a need for a solution that genuinely meets the concerns and needs of rural communities and is fair.
On the point about the real cost, my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) raised a number of points in his representations, and particularly picked up on the point about the £1,400 or £1,500 cost. He said that he did not believe that many of the boxes proposed for closure in his area cost anything like that, and that he did not see why he should have to pay the cost of frequently vandalised boxes in urban areas, which is spread across the piece, when the boxes in his area do not cost a great deal to maintain.
This has been a good and important debate. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that he cannot hide entirely behind Ofcom on this. We recognise the regulator's role, but views have been expressed constructively and vehemently by too many Opposition Members here. We should like to know not only Ofcom's view but the Government's view on how to deal with the problem.
10.38 am
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con): This has been an interesting and important debate. As has been pointed out, it is surprising that apart from the Minister, of the 460 or 470 Labour MPs in Parliament not one has chosen to take part in this debate, which affects not only rural but urban areas. In Lichfield, if one has a Vodafone phone, one does not get Vodafone coverage. I hope that Vodafone might be listening, and will provide such coverage. As the hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) said—I absolutely agree with him—if roaming were possible in the United Kingdom, that would not be an issue because I could access other mobile phone operators through my phone.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) on introducing this debate, which is on an important issue.
12 Oct 2004 : Column 20WH
Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley), I received a letter from BT informing me that there would be phone box closures in my constituency. That brought a sense of déjà vu, because it reminded me—it might similarly remind others here today—of the Government's recent handling of post office closures. They passed the buck on that, and I hope, as the hon. Member for Gordon said, that the Minister will not choose to pass the buck today and blame it all on Ofcom, just as the Secretary of State has blamed post office closures on the Royal Mail.
Let us be clear about the universal service obligation imposed on BT by the Communications Act 2003, which was passed only last year. It clearly says that BT
"are required to ensure the adequate provision of public call boxes and call box services throughout the UK to meet the reasonable needs of end users".
We heard the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) say that, in his constituency, this can be a matter of life and death. There have been instances in all our constituencies when people have not had mobile phones with them or where mobile phone coverage was not available, and the emergency services have been summoned in time only through the use of an available call box.
Ofcom's current assessment is that BT cannot and should not discriminate against vulnerable consumers, as we have heard today, because they may rely on payphones to access telecommunications. The Minister clearly agrees. In the Daily Express on 18 August, he said:
"not everyone can afford a mobile or home phone".
He is, of course, right. BT and the Government must ensure that payphone users have access to competitive services equal to that of fixed-line users. Closing more than 9,000 call boxes does not fulfil this brief, or the requirements laid on BT by the Communications Act 2003.
There is still a real demand for payphones. Some 587 million calls a year are made from payphones, 9 per cent. of which are emergency calls made from call boxes, as we heard today. Moreover, many disadvantaged and minority groups use payphones extensively. A study carried out by Oftel in 2003, before Ofcom was founded, found that asylum seekers and non-white ethnic groups use payphones and PayCards regularly to make international calls to their homes and their loved ones, to keep costs down. The same survey found that more than 2 million adults use payphones regularly to call 0800 numbers. That point has not be raised today, but let us not forget that one cannot call an 0800 number free of charge from one's mobile phone. That is an important issue.
Some 39 per cent. of regular payphone users also have mobile phones, but mobile operators either charge for calls to freephone numbers, as I just said, or bar access altogether, so even if one is willing to pay, one cannot get through. Moreover, as we have heard, universal mobile coverage has still not been achieved, and I doubt that it will be achieved, because of the topography of the British isles. In rural and some urban areas, there are still large holes in the network, so there is no question of choice; consumers must use fixed-line phones. BT payphones therefore provide an important source through which people can access this service.
12 Oct 2004 : Column 21WH
I fear that BT's removal of more than 9,000 phone boxes will disproportionately affect certain sectors of society—those who are deprived for one reason or another—as well as urban users and those in rural areas. I do not believe that the Government should pass the buck or allow those who cannot afford a mobile phone to be so disadvantaged. I shall quote the Minister again, if I may, as he has the disadvantage of having a constituency that is not very far from mine, so I get to see the same newspapers occasionally. In the Coventry Evening Telegraph on 16 August this year, he said:
"the main thing is if they are taking away payphones, they ought to do it with some concern for areas where it will have a social impact. We need to make sure that we do not disproportionately hurt people who are already disadvantaged."
Michael Fabricant : The Minister agrees with himself: we need to ensure that we do not disproportionately hurt people who are already disadvantaged. He is right.
Mr. O'Brien : I am making the case for my constituents and for the Government, rather than for the hon. Gentleman, so perhaps he should not claim that he is the only one who supports call boxes.
Michael Fabricant : Had the Minister listened to the debate he would know very well that I am not the only one who supports call boxes, because I think everyone taking part in this debate supports them, apart from the Labour party. That is the point that we are all making.
A point that no one has raised, which is not trivial, is that 2,900 of the 9,000 call boxes that are to go will be the traditional red ones. Those red telephone boxes are a part of our heritage and are recognised as such by millions of people all over the world. The red telephone box is a great British icon. BT, of course, sees the matter rather differently. It states that
"the fact that a phone box is red is irrelevant as we plan our removals based on usage levels and the size of the community it serves".
That is a pure logical argument, but I do not think that the type of phone box should be irrelevant. We should try to protect our phone boxes—particularly our red phone boxes—in historic areas. I have a plea for a particularly nice type of historic area—cathedral cities, such as Lichfield.
Mr. Williams : The hon. Gentleman has raised a new point, which was brought to my attention by a constituent in New Radnor, who claimed that the six telephone boxes under threat there are all listed red telephone boxes. British Telecom now tells me that it is unable to close any telephone box that is listed.
Michael Fabricant : That is a very interesting and revealing point. I do not know whether I should reveal this, but I think I will. Several examples have been given of ways of using phone boxes without getting a connection, such as children ringing three times. I heard from an hon. Member, before the debate, that he was actually conceived in a red phone box, so an important issue is involved.
We have heard from several hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury, about the financial aspect of the matter. Each phone box
12 Oct 2004 : Column 22WH
apparently costs on average £1,650 a year to maintain. Clearly that is a problem. However, the removal of so many call boxes is going too far. The Government must not allow BT to forget, as they allowed the Post Office to forget, that it is a universal public service provider.
The Minister gave an assurance, in an intervention, that that right of veto would not be taken away and that Ofcom is not considering that. That is not what Ofcom has said to several Opposition Members. Will the Minister make it clear whether the veto will still stand after the Ofcom consultation has been completed? It is now reviewing the universal service obligation, and that review will start next month. The consultation will last 12 weeks and will cover the whole issue of objections by public bodies.
I will not make an excuse for raising the issue of post office closures again, because I believe that the closures were shambolic. The Government must not be allowed to pass the buck to Ofcom. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling said, the Minister must come clean. BT is a public service provider, just like the Post Office. Will the Minister give Opposition Members an assurance that our payphones are safe in Government hands?
10.50 am
The Minister for Energy and E-Commerce (Mr. Mike O'Brien) : In the limited time available, I have several issues to deal with and shall try to cover as many as I can of the points that have been raised.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams), who has raised an enormously important issue. Not only his constituents, but mine and those of other hon. Members, will be concerned about it. This has been a good debate and some important points have been raised. British Telecom needs to listen to the real concerns that have been expressed by hon. Members and take some of them on board when it next seeks to carry out consultations with local authorities and others about how call box closures take place.
The hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) made a good point. He said that we should not just blame BT, that there is a wider problem of the growth in mobile phone use, and that Ofcom needs to look at the issues in an innovative way. He is right about that. For some time, the business conducted by public call box providers—especially BT—has been under increasing pressure. Mobile phone use has increased and call box use has decreased proportionately. Telecommunication is, of course, a privatised industry. Companies seek to make profits and that has led to call box operators deciding to scale back the provision of call boxes and remove some that they regard as underutilised or uneconomic.
Regulation of call box provision is a matter for the independent regulator, the Office of Communications. The Government set the broad overall framework, but the detailed regulation is entirely a matter for Ofcom. It always amazes me that we get Conservatives saying that we ought to privatise things, put them in the private sector, get the Government off people's backs and end Government interference, and then, as soon as things are privatised and there is an independent regulator, they say that the Government are passing the buck
12 Oct 2004 : Column 23WH
because they are not interfering enough. That is politics, but it is not serious; it is knockabout politics. What we are dealing with is a serious issue and people need to get a clear view of the way forward.
Over the past five years, it is certainly true that mobile phone penetration has increased to cover most of the population, except for the very young, some of the very old and those who are unable to afford a mobile phone or who have made a conscious decision—who can blame them?—not to have one. That has caused a sustained reduction in call box use and, from a commercial perspective, reduced the revenue that BT gets from payphones. However, the provision of public call boxes should not be seen just as a commercial venture that is part of BT's business.
The Government and Ofcom see the need to protect the provision of call boxes as an important means of social and economic inclusion. Although usage has been declining, call boxes are still well used by significant proportions of the population. The overall numbers may be small and users may be from particular groups, such as the young and low-income users, but they are people to whom there is an obligation, and that needs to be recognised.
The tension between the commercial and the public service issues was conveyed very well by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik), who said that we were talking about a private company with a public service obligation. We know that that private company has a real problem. Hon. Members do not want to lose their local call boxes—they do not want to lose that public facility—so Ofcom is undertaking a broader consultation about how we look at the public service obligation. I hope that the consultation, which is coming up shortly, will involve more than 17 people replying to Ofcom and that it will be ensured that hon. Members can voice in their concerns about the way in which the public service obligation operates.
Matthew Green : Will the Minister give way?
Mr. O'Brien : Will the hon. Gentleman excuse me? I have only three and half minutes left to reply and there is quite a lot I have to get through.
The call box network is protected by the universal service obligation and a right to object, in limited circumstances, on the part of local authorities. BT and Kingston, the providers of call boxes, fund that network, but Ofcom now needs to consider through a wide consultation how we can maintain reasonable access to call boxes for members of the public and how we can protect that network. The Government want broad accessibility of call boxes to the public, particularly to those groups who need them. I want to be clear on that.
I am also concerned by some of the points raised during the debate about BT's method of consulting on the issue, particularly in not making it clear to some local authorities that they have—effectively—a right of veto and can exercise that right. BT needs to take those points on board and to listen to the strong concerns
12 Oct 2004 : Column 24WH
expressed here. In the letter I saw about particular call boxes, I do not recall a reference to that veto, but I will look at that letter again. I think that, when they get told about proposals to close call boxes, Members of Parliament also need to be aware that there is a right of veto. That awareness needs to be raised.
The stories that we heard about the way that BT responded to—at least initial—inquiries by hon. Members are a matter of concern. BT needs to make sure that the consultation is carried out properly. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire also pointed out that consulting more widely with local authorities and with the LGA might well be in BT's interests when considering whether we can find a way forward. I hope that it will listen to that recommendation.
On the consultation that is taking place, I have asked for the situation in relation to the veto to be double-checked with Ofcom today. I must be clear about what it said. Removing the veto is not one of the options that it is considering. However, it is a consultation. Therefore, it may well be that others—perhaps BT—say that Ofcom ought to consider removing the veto. While Ofcom are not putting that forward as one of its options for change at this point—I am told by my officials who spoke to Ofcom today that it is right that removing the veto is not something that Ofcom is considering—it is possible that others may ask it to do so in the future. Therefore, my recommendation to all hon. Members is that when the consultation takes place, they should get in their two-pennyworth and make sure that they state their view about how the veto should be sustained in the long-term. It is certainly an issue.
We believe that the universal service obligation is fundamental to the regulation of telecommunications in the UK. It means that basic telephone services should be available to everyone on reasonable request and at an affordable price. That includes the provision of call boxes. Accordingly, the provision of call boxes has been included in the Department of Trade and Industry's Electronic Communications (Universal Service), Order 2003, which was made under the Communications Act 2003. It sets out the framework for Ofcom to set out the detail of call box regulation. It preserves the provision of call boxes to meet the reasonable needs of end users in terms of geographical coverage, numbers of call boxes and quality of service.
One of the concerns raised is about rural areas. Before I close, I will say a word on that. BT should recognise that there are areas that mobile phones do not cover. There are areas that particular providers of mobile phone services are unable to access. In other words, there are blackspots. Therefore, it is necessary to have some call box coverage in those areas.
The way in which the rules for removing a call box operate means that there needs to be a 42-day consultation period. Where it is the case that the local council has not been made aware by BT of its right to veto a closure, and has therefore not been able to make a recommendation in the 42-day period, I hope that BT will consider allowing the local council to raise the issue with it subsequently and take on board the local council's concern that a call box should not be closed.
12 Oct 2004 : Column 25WH
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |