Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill

I ask the Minister to consider what happens if a contract under the 1954 Act contains a provision in relation to not increasing the height of a mast, or to an area where a mast operator is allowed to control the growth of vegetation—trees in particular—but then the operator demands rights to raise the mast, thus presenting a degree of visual intrusion to the farmhouse or whatever it happens to be. In a case I encountered, after 20 years of trying to establish a shelter belt at 1,400 feet up on Exmoor, the contractors for EE demanded to cut a swathe through the middle of this to get line of sight with another mast which was not in contemplation at the time the agreement was entered into. How would such an inconvenience be quantified in market terms? I suggest that there is no way of dealing with those sorts of situations under the code. The operator would simply turn round and say, “You’ve suffered no mercantile loss, and if your trees blow down we’ll give you a contribution towards re-planting them—and you’ve no right to a view anyway, so tough.” Could the Minister explain how he thinks those non-market aspects are going to be dealt with?