Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-02-22
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am sorry that I was unable to satisfy noble Lords at Committee, so let me try again. Amendment 5 raises important issues for many customers, and we really do appreciate consumer concerns. Following previous debates that we have had on these matters, my officials have spoken with mobile network operators to check progress in this area Currently, providers offer consumers various ways to manage their usage, including the use of bill caps. So I say to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that it is possible already for a consumer to put a cap on his or her expenditure. Tesco Mobile, for example, already provides capped contracts for the benefit of its customers. This includes a safety buffer which can be set to suit preference. Three allows consumers to block calls that go over their monthly allowance and calls that may be not be included as part of their allowance. Vodafone allows a cap to be set up through an app. Additionally, EE, Virgin Media and O2 offer the facility of notifying customers through warning text message alerts when approaching the limit of their allowances The Government expect providers to continue to take steps to minimise bill shock and ensure that their customers are adequately equipped to manage their mobile phone usage. We will underline this further in the forthcoming consumer Green Paper, which will be published in April, a Green Paper that my noble friend Lord Ashton has referenced today. This is an issue that needs careful thought, which is why the Government believe it is only right that we do so in a consultative manner. We need to consider and mitigate unintended consequences in that process Universal bill caps do not exist for other utility services for good reason—the essential nature of them. Mobile phone services are indeed an essential service for many; I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, that they are not a luxury. We need to ensure that the outcome from this debate does not risk putting people in vulnerable situations, whether that is leaving them unable to make a vital call when they break down at the side of the road or having to contact a friend or relative in their hour of need I know a number of elderly people living on their own who rely wholly and completely on their ability to use their mobile phone if they are afraid or concerned or have a fall. They may have forgotten to pay their bills and so on. Suppose they did not have that opportunity to contact someone in an emergency. They would be put in a difficult and frightening situation. I know there is a feeling that, "Well, the bill cap is there, but people could still contact the emergency services". However, we already have an enormous burden on our emergency services, and we fear that this would increase that burden. So would this really be in the interests of consumers, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones I agree with noble Lords that mobile providers need to take responsibility for looking after their customers. The Government have previously negotiated a voluntary agreement with providers that means there is already a £100 liability cap to cover lost and stolen mobile phone handsets, provided that they are reported as lost or stolen within 24 hours. There was good reason not to put that agreement in primary legislation: it would have been too prescriptive and offered no flexibility as technologies progress. That is an issue that we keep returning to: do we want to be prescriptive in the Bill when we are talking about the digital economy, when we know the technology is constantly changing? So we have considerable concerns with putting such a prescriptive amendment into primary legislation It is worth highlighting that Ofcom, as regulator, has a duty to protect the interests of the end-user in the telecom markets. It would therefore seem improper to progress the amendment without due consideration to what the role of government and Ofcom would be regarding enforcement. There is no point putting this in the Bill if there is no practical enforcement. This is yet another reason why the Green Paper will allow us to reach a well thought-out solution to address the concerns that noble Lords have rightly raised The switching principles that noble Lords have proposed putting on to the statute book are broadly those on which the Government consulted in an October 2015 call for evidence. Following the end of that consultation, the Government published a response in May 2016, including revised principles based on responses received to the call for evidence. The Government’s response also confirmed our commitment to work with Ofcom to ensure that consumers could switch their telecom services, by legislating through the Digital Economy Bill. However, the Bill does not mandate the switching principles, as this would go against the spirit of them as principles and would not take account of the different characteristics of different sectors and consumer needs. We know that it would risk creating a power that could prove to be, again, too prescriptive for the future needs of consumers as technologies continue to develop.