UK Parliament / Open data

Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill

My Lords, I too welcome the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, to the salt mines. He knows little yet of how much work is involved in being a Whip; that is all that I can say. I would also like to echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, said about the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and his service as DCMS Minister. We all appreciated that very much.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, who made a very powerful case for her amendment in Committee. I thank the Government for having agreed to that. CityFibre said, in its original briefing, before we had Committee, that this would make a huge impact, particularly in rural areas and in urban Scotland. I have just come back from the US and have seen, in some rural areas such as New Hampshire, the impact of being able to put these superfast fibre-optic cables on telegraph poles. It is really an effective way of delivering superfast broadband to those areas. CityFibre estimated that 1 million such poles exist across the UK, so we are not talking about a small issue.

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, as ever, put her finger on the key issues in this particular new clause, about what constitutes agreement between operator and main operator, and operator and landowner. The more clarity that the noble Lord can give us, the better we will be.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

824 c804 

Session

2022-23

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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