Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill — House of Lords, 2022-06-29
Topic: Mixed Topics
Timothy Francis Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, on these Benches, we support the amendments introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, with his expertise both as a valuer and surveyor and as a site provider. I well understand why he has taken the trouble to take us through the amendments in the way he has, because they lie absolutely at the core of the Bill, of the relationship between site providers and operators over a long period, and of Protect and Connect’s campaign. It is quite reasonable to unpack the valuation system that has been in place and explain in some detail his proposals by way of the amendments for a new valuation system, or at least an alternative way to deal with the current one I start by quoting the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers: "The tragedy of the 2017 Code is that, far from encouraging collaboration over sites assisting roll-out, some leading operators have made heavy handed, confrontational and attritional use of the powers and privileges they were given by it, very largely to reduce the cost of renewing existing agreements rather than winning new ones or make themselves attractive as tenants. The irony is that, as reported to November’s RICS Telecoms Conference, even if rents may now be much reduced, the overall cost of securing a site has doubled and timescales lengthened." That seems very paradoxical. This refers to the fact that, as the noble Earl said, under changes made to the code in 2017, a no-scheme or no-network valuation methodology for valuing land was introduced. As he also explained, this allowed site providers to recover only the raw value of their land, rather than receiving a market price. It did this by inserting a new line into the code that, when setting the value of a site, prevents courts from taking into account a site’s potential use for the provision or use of an electronic communications network At the same time, as the noble Earl has also explained, another change was made to the code’s valuation provisions to ensure that site owners cannot charge ransom rents. Any valuation must assume that there is another site available to operators so there is no monopoly in land provision around any site. As he also mentioned, this was recommended to the Government by the Law Commission. Operators have been able to use these changes to drive down the rents that they pay to site providers, often to peppercorn rents. In 2017, the Government said that they expected that rent reductions should be no more than an absolute maximum of 40%, and that has been cited at Second Reading and on many other occasions. However, we know from data cited by the operators that reductions have at best averaged at 63%, a huge sum for many of the people who rent their land to be used for telecoms infrastructure, and in many cases, as we have also heard, reductions have been much higher—in the region of 90% The Minister will be aware of the Protect & Connect campaign, and many Members around the House will have had communication with it. It cites the Fox Lane Sports & Social Club, which had a mast on its land for 12 years owned first by Orange and now by EE. The club was getting £7,800 a year but it has now been told that it will get only £794 a year from 2023. Billericay Rugby Football Club had a mast for over 20 years and allowed Vodafone—now Cornerstone—to attach infrastructure to the mast. It paid the volunteer-run club £8,500 a year. However, with the changes to the code, EE says that it will cut the rent by more than 90% to £750 a year. There are many such case histories worth looking into. The evidence is there.