My Lords, I will speak to the stand part notice in my name, on which I am delighted to have the support of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, opposing that Clause 63 should stand part of the Bill.
The new sections inserted by Clauses 63 and 64 make provision for all code agreements, when renewed by court order, including those made prior to 2017, to be made on land valuation terms consistent with the 2017 code. The new sections will apply to England and Wales or to Northern Ireland only. These measures, I understand, were a response to the consequence of the 2017 ECC reforms on the treatment of certain expired code agreements that are up for renewal, as had been set out in the previous consultation.
Again, Clauses 61 to 63 expand the agreements covered by the Digital Economy Act 2017 to extend to areas previously exempted from the renewal procedures of the 2017 Act, specifically those covered by Business Tenancies (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 and the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. The clauses also insert the valuation provisions of the code directly into the older legislation so that consideration of compensation for site owners under these agreements is calculated in a similar way to that under the code, as we have heard, leading to lower rents.
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I should like to strengthen the earlier argument of my noble friend Lord Parkinson by producing evidence that the rates are not being reduced. I have a copy of a letter from as recently as April this year from a member of the NFU to the NFU in, I understand, the north-east of England, from which I quote:
“Having ongoing first-hand experience of a Code renewal, I strongly support the NFU’s effort to oppose certain changes put forward by the recent Product Security and Telecommunications
Infrastructure (PSTI) Bill—to advocate for a greater balance of power between landowners and operators, and for the topic of land valuation to be urgently reviewed. Otherwise the PSTI Bill, which is effectively a cranking up of rights for operators but without a review of how telecoms sites are now valued, will simply serve to harm the market further as it weakens the already limited protections that site providers have under the existing legislation.”
I think that directly shows that even as recently as two or three months ago, a member of the NFU lamented the fact that rents are, as my noble friend Lord Northbrook said, radically reduced to a level not previously anticipated, I believe, by the Government, to the Minister’s certain admission. I therefore press my noble friend, as I believe Clause 63 goes to the heart of the change imposed since 2017 and how radical the reduction will be. I understand that the tribunal to which the application for the order will be made will now be an upper-tier tribunal—I should like that confirmed—but new subsection (2) states:
“The court may order the tenant to pay compensation to the landlord for any damage or loss that has been sustained or will be sustained by the landlord as a result of the exercise of any of the code rights conferred by the new tenancy.”
I just want to be clear about precisely what the extent of that compensation will be. Can we assume that it will be radically less than was previously the case? Does the Minister accept that, rather than increase the ability for faster speeds—greater connectivity for broadband and wi-fi, and a better signal for mobile connections—it will have the perverse effect of achieving the complete opposite? I press my noble friend on what exactly the extent of the compensation will be. In the event that the compensation is radically reduced to that previously intended, do my noble friend and his department envisage revisiting this clause at a later stage?