Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Helen Catherine Goodman (Labour, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman said that, but he also said that he thought that this was a difficult area, and one of the reasons why he thought so was that people enjoyed doing it. Grown-ups enjoy having sex and grown-ups enjoy drinking alcohol, but that does not mean that those things are okay for children My real purpose this evening is to speak to new clause 26, which I had considerable help from the National Deaf Children’s Society in preparing. The new clause is designed to protect from frequency interference those with hearing loss who have hearing aids, radio aids, cochlear implants and other hearing technologies. Ofcom is about to sell spectrum, and there is a concern that the part of the spectrum that it is going to sell is so close to the wavelength used by such technologies that interference will be caused The new clause would place a duty on Ofcom to carry out tests in advance of the sale of the radio frequencies to ensure that any interference is identified and made public and to take appropriate action. That action could take two forms: either Ofcom should not grant a wireless telegraphy licence unless action is taken to remove the risk of interference; or a fund should be established to cover the cost of replacing medical and hearing technology affected by interference. That is important for the 10 million people who suffer from hearing loss and the 45,000 deaf children in this country, and it will enable Ofcom to fulfil its duties under the Equality Act 2010 The Minister has said that tests have been done and more tests will be done and that we will know what those tests come up with in April 2017, so everything is fine. That is not the view of the National Deaf Children’s Society, which is not confident about the way in which the tests will be carried out. It has undertaken considerable correspondence with the regulator, and there is still dispute about how the tests should be done and how the results should be interpreted. Even if the tests are done and the results published on this occasion, as the Minister suggested, what happens then? What if there is interference? Will the spectrum then not be auctioned off as the Government intend? Will there be some funding for people who have to have new hearing aids as a result? The Minister’s response, I am sorry to say, is not adequate Interference will be a problem for children who use radio aids in the classroom to help them to hear what their teachers are saying. Unlike grown-ups, they cannot easily guess what a person is saying, because they are hearing things for the first time. The tests done in 2014 found that someone with a mobile phone using the relevant frequency could interfere with a hearing aid 4 metres away. I know quite a lot about hearing aids, because my husband has terrible hearing and he has two hearing aids. If he goes to a party, he can hardly hear what other people are saying anyway, and if his hearing aids were interfered with by other people standing in the room, it would be a nightmare. I urge the Minister to be flexible and to look at the matter again.