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Mrs. Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con): On the issue of new areas of housing development, of which I have a lot in my constituency of Basingstoke, does the hon. Gentleman agree that more planning in advance of houses being built could allow sites to be set aside for mobile phone operators to use to ensure better coverage in those new areas of housing? At the moment, new houses are built without any consideration for the mobile phone coverage that those areas might require.
Mr. Dismore: The hon. Lady makes an important point. My constituency contains one of the fastest-growing neighbourhoods in London, with potentially 10,000 extra households over the next five to 10 years. The more general point is that developers tend to overlook the whole impact on public services, whether mobile phones or otherwise. It is difficult to devise a strategy whereby mobile phone masts can be erected safely on some of those dense new developments.
The Bill seems rather complex. I am concerned about who will draft the precautionary principle statement. If it is not done independently, I suspect that mobile phone companies will be pleading in their own cause. I am also concerned about who will produce the beam of greatest intensity certificate. Will that be done independently? If it is done by the mobile phone companies, where is the guarantee of independence?
The Bill should be a lot simpler. Mobile phone masts should go through the full planning process to allow people to object. There should be full planning processes for replacement 3G masts—they should not be seen as permitted development simply because a mast is already there. We should have much stronger powers to take into account precautionary principles beyond the code of practice, which is simply not enough. Public concern, most of all about health, must be reflected in those considerations. I know that the scientific evidence is somewhat ambivalent, but the problem is that a clear guarantee cannot be given, and until and unless one can be given, local communities will be concerned, and they are entitled to have those concerns recognised.
If there is a vote on the Bill, I shall vote for it. In Committee, however, I hope to adopt the philosophy of the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). Some big changes are needed to make the Bill less complex and more straightforward and to address the concerns of the public.
1.24 pm
Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD):
I am delighted to support the Bill. The right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) generously gave me credit for an earlier version, and indeed I consider this an important subject. I also thank the right hon. Gentleman for the measured way in which he put his case. He made it very clear that his Bill did not constitute an attempt to disable
3 Mar 2006 : Column 560
the mobile phone industry or to close mobile phone networks. I do not want to do that either. I have a mobile phone, as the House will unfortunately have heard earlier today, so I cannot possibly say anything against them. However, I am glad that the issue has returned to the House. I hope that the Minister will not just be sympathetic, as I know he always is, and will not just be emollient, as I know he always is. I hope that he will say "Let us give the Bill some serious examination at the next stage," because that is plainly what the public want and what Members want.
The problem goes back to the Telecommunications Act 1984, which—as the right hon. Gentleman explained very clearly—exempted masts from planning rules, and from the subsequent reiteration by Governments that all matters relating to health were subject to national Government rather than local government decisions. That means that all health aspects have been removed from consideration, as have a wide range of base stations.
The difficulties have been compounded by the oppressive contracts that mobile phone companies arrange with those who permit masts to be placed on their property. That first came to my attention when a secondary school in my area, Marple Hall, agreed to a mast being placed on its property in the early days of telecommunications masts. Following a fair amount of protest from parents and others in the neighbourhood, the school rescinded its decision, only to find that the contract that it had signed did not entitle it to have the mast removed. It had signed away its rights to such an extent that the company could install any replacement mast that it chose, and could carry out any repairs, maintenance or alterations that it wished to undertake. In fact, the school had completely forgone its property rights.
In another case in my constituency, a mast was alleged to be less than 15 m high and thus not to require permission. Again there were bitter objections. Someone went to the trouble of measuring the mast, which proved to be not less than 15 m high, but 16 m high. The local authority took action against the company for installing a mast above the permitted height, on valid planning grounds. Those grounds were challenged by the company. The Secretary of State's inspector upheld the council's decision, and ordered that the mast be removed. The company's response was very straightforward: it said "We will take the 16 m mast down, cut 1 m off and put it back." It is that sort of response—waving two fingers at the law and the intention of the law—that has so deeply angered Members and their constituents.
The right hon. Gentleman covered the health issue very well. It is a question not of manifest and apparent danger, but of a suspicion that it will come to light in future that there were hazards that were not taken properly into account. That is what Sir William Stewart addressed in his two reports.
I hope the House will note that the two other parties in the House are committed to changing the present system. During the debate on the earlier version of the Bill on 18 March, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker)—speaking, I assume, on behalf of the Conservative party—said
"the next Conservative Government will require all phone masts, regardless of size and proposed site, to be subject to the full planning permission process".
I am delighted that, at least then, that was Conservative policy. I am not sure whether the policy has been subjected to a U-turn or has been reviewed in the meantime; perhaps the Minister will tell us later.
In that same debate, some election literature from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Byrne), who is a Labour Member, was read into the record. He said that Labour would
"do everything we can to ensure that there are no more phone masts near schools and hospitals".—[Official Report, 18 March 2005; Vol. 432, c. 570, 568.]
I concede that that was only election literature and that, like manifesto promises on ID cards and other matters, it could have changed since, but I hope that the Minister will say that that is the intention of the Labour Government.
Dr. Pugh : The hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Byrne) is a Minister in the Department of Health at the moment, is he not?
Andrew Stunell: I am sure that what I think they call collective Cabinet responsibility will mean that what the Minister says to the House today will bind all his colleagues at all levels. I hope that that will be the case. I hope that what he says will bind the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the new constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie). The Chancellor is, I suspect, the person who is least likely to be happy with the Bill, because he may face some angry phone companies asking whether they can have their £30 billion back. That is the elephant in the room, because fantastic sums of money are involved in the promotion of the industry. Clearly, any constraint on trade is viewed by the industry with the utmost suspicion and it fights against it.
Every Member of Parliament to whom I have ever spoken on the issue has a significant case load of difficult and aggravating planning consents and disputes about the installation of masts. There is no way that the current planning exemptions can be justified. Arguably, they were right to get the industry started, but it is now 60 million customers strong. It is capable of coughing up £30 billion for its next generation of installation. The idea that it needs special help to proceed is outdated and wrong.
The health risks are an additional factor. I am pleased that the Bill deals with that by requiring what amounts to an individual MOT health certificate for those masts that are close to and beaming on health facilities and schools.
Mr. Hunt: On the health issue, does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is particular concern about technologies such as terrestrial trunked radio, the use of which is not as widespread and which operates on different frequencies? With those different frequencies, which are not used by ordinary mobile phone users, but are used by the police, ambulance services and others, the health concerns are much greater. Is not that also a good reason for the precautionary principle to be incorporated into planning laws in respect of mobile phone masts?
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