My Lords, I speak on behalf of my noble friend Lady Merron, who has tabled this amendment. The proposed new clause in Amendment 19 would
“require operators with agreements under the code that are not subsisting agreements to provide written notice to site providers that are an emergency service in advance of apparatus being upgraded or shared”.
This would obviously allow “relevant emergency services” to plan better around things such as
“service outages or other forms of disruption.”
We have tabled this amendment because some hospitals have reported instances where telecoms engineers have arrived to inspect or upgrade equipment, having provided little or no notice of their visit or the need to turn broadband and other data connections off for its duration. As I am sure the Minister will be aware, this amendment was tabled in the Commons and, at that point, the Government insisted that the clarification was unnecessary. The Minister, Julia Lopez, said that paragraph 17 rights authorise a visit only where there is no adverse impact, which probably brings us back to earlier debates.
For visits that go beyond paragraph 17 rights, the Government insist that operators need to obtain permission in advance or potentially face legal repercussions. However, hospitals and other emergency services have far more important things to do than pursue complaints and court orders while they are running important services. The Minister also claimed that introducing this clarification
“would undermine the policy intention of the rights”.—[Official Report, Commons, Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill Committee, 22/3/22; col. 121.]
Perhaps the Minister can outline exactly how.
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Should we take from this that the Government’s policy is to prioritise operator rights over the ability of hospitals, police or fire or ambulance services to have reliable access to crucial IT systems? The current drafting of the amendment, I willingly confess, might not be the best way of achieving this important protection for emergency service sites, but I hope we can find a way to mutually agree. The number of cases may
even be low, but unexpected switch-offs could—I am sure the Minister would accept—have quite disastrous impacts and effects on the way in which services operate.
This is an amendment moved with a good spirit behind it and I think there is some need for clarification. I hope the Minister will give this a positive response because it certainly needs one.
I do not have any comments on the clauses stand part, because I am not quite sure exactly what is motivating them, but I shall be interested to hear what the proposers have to say. I beg to move.