|
Mr. Timms: The production of the plan is a new requirement following from article 5 of the authorisation directive. In the UK, Ofcom will have a duty to provide this plan. The clause requires that the plan to be published and updated regularly, as the hon. Member for Lichfield said. I would not want to constrain those who are responsible in Ofcom by what I say about frequency. The Radiocommunications Agency publishes its spectrum strategy approximately every two years. That is broadly what I expect will happen with the plan. The agency coordinates that publication with the world radio conferences.
The plan will give details of which parts of the spectrum are available for assignment. I will list all the authorisations made by license exemption regulations, with references to the frequencies and the conditions of the regulations. That information will help to make sure that spectrum management is transparent. It will be very useful for those wanting to use the radio spectrum for whatever purpose. They will be able to see at a glance if they need a license in order to use a particular frequency, which frequency is available for assignment and for which applications. This information is published, in a different form, in the spectrum strategy I referred to.
I would not want the hon. Member for Lichfield to expect much detail in the plan when it is published. The plan, for example, will not show which individuals have been awarded licenses although, under clause 165 on the wireless telegraphy register, that will complement the plan by enabling Ofcom to publish information about assignments, subject to suitable safeguards for security and commercial confidentiality.
Will it set out what will happen in future? No. What the plan will contain is clearly set out in subsection (2). Ofcom will want to make available whatever information it can about envisaged changes, in order to assist those who need to plan operations in response. The constraints set out in subsection (2) are a necessary requirement of the plan. Ofcom, if possible, will provide further information, not necessarily in this plan, but elsewhere.
Michael Fabricant: The Minister has reassured me to some extent. He said there would be a need to provide some indication of how frequencies might be allocated in the future. He said it would not be contained in the plan. Regarding frequency allocation, does he envisage that future planning might be expanded in the annual report of Ofcom?
Column Number: 021
Mr. Timms: I can certainly tell him that Ofcom, as is currently the case with the Radiocommunications Agency, will endeavour to give as much information as possible to its customers in every way it can. It is the case, as the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford said earlier in our proceedings, that the agency is seen as a helpful organisation in this and other respects. I am quite confident that Ofcom will be too.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 148 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 149
Duties of OFCOM when carrying out spectrum functions
Mr. Lansley: I beg to move amendment No.15, in
clause 149, page 136, line 32, leave out subsection (3).
Clause 149 sets out the range of matters that must be taken into account by Ofcom when managing spectrum. I hope that the Committee will forgive me, but I shall have to take a tour back through history. The purpose of section 2 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1998 was to set out the matters to be taken into account by the Secretary of State or the Radiocommunications Agency, on his behalf, when exercising the power to prescribe fees payable in respect of wireless telegraphy licences. In effect, that was the introduction of administrative incentive pricing for wireless telegraphy licences. The matters that must be taken into account are reflected directly under clause 149.
Let us consider clause 149(1)(a), (b) and (c). Such measures cover the supply, demand and prospective demand for spectrum and are translated from section 2 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1998. Subsection (2) of clause 149 sets out further factors that are not concerned with supply and demand for spectrum, but wider matters that relate to the economic management for spectrum for the delivery of benefits to society as a whole, such as efficient management, economic and other benefits, development of innovative services and competition. Such matters have been separated under the clause. It may be asked why were they not set out in a group in the same way as they were set out under section 2 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act.
I refer to the debates on the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1998 in Standing Committee A on 13 November 1997.
Brian White: I remember it well.
Mr. Lansley: Yes. I was there. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East was there, as was the Minister. If the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) were with us, he might recall it. My purpose in that debate was to establish that the matters to be taken into account under section 2 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act should be taken into account in relation not only to administrative incentive pricing on wireless telegraphy licences, but spectrum auctions. The then Minister, the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) said about spectrum auctions that
Column Number: 022
''clause 2 matters may be taken into account in assessing bids''.—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 13 November 1997; c. 151.]
The hon. Gentleman was resisting the point that not only might such matters be taken into account, but that they should be taken into account. The legislation did not require the Secretary of State to take them into account because the structure of the Wireless Telegraphy Act meant that they were related specifically to wireless telegraphy licences and administrative incentive pricing, and were expressly excluded from applying to spectrum auctions. It meant that the Secretary of State could then prescribe in regulations those matters that he or she wanted to take into account in a spectrum auction. The Secretary of State went on to do so, for example, in the 3G auction and in relation to a range of issues, such as the efficient use of the spectrum, the promotion of competition, optimum efficiency in spectrum use, the promotion of effective and sustainable competition and the delivery of full economic value.
Words and interpretations differ. It could be said that delivering full economic value comprises many of those other factors, but it is interesting that the development of innovative services, which was one of the matters to be taken into account under section 2 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act was not specified in relation to the 3G auction. I shall not go into a long rigmarole about the auction, but I contend that the Secretary of State was not required to apply those matters when considering an auction and chose not to do so. Whether she was right is secondary: it ought to have been a requirement. That is the history and what the Conservatives argued back in 1997.
The Government have changed the structure with clause 149 and done something different. Instead of disapplying the further factors in subsection (3) so that they applied only to administrative incentive pricing, in respect of grants of recognised spectrum access or in relation to spectrum trading, they have constructed things differently so that those factors apply to everything—to the whole of spectrum use. That is what the clause sets out.
However, as I understand it, subsection (3) disapplies those matters in relation to anything other than the prescribing of fees for wireless telegraphy licences for administrative incentive pricing purposes. It refers back to section 2 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1998 which, as we will discover when we debate schedule 17, will be amended to relate to the grant of wireless telegraphy licences or recognised spectrum access under section 1 of that Act. Subsection (3) means that the additional matters to be taken into account in subsection (2):
''efficient management and use of the . . . spectrum . . . economic and other benefits . . . development of innovative services . . . and competition'',
which I contend should be taken into account in spectrum auctions and in the administration of spectrum trading, may be disapplied. They would then apply only to administrative incentive pricing and recognised spectrum access.
Those matters should be taken into account throughout the activity of spectrum management. Therefore, amendment No. 15 would remove
Column Number: 023
subsection (3), which has the effect of disapplying those factors in relation to matters other than those relating to section 1 of the Wireless and Telegraphy Act.
Mr. Bryant: Unlike others, I shall be very brief. I could not find a better place to raise this issue Mr. Gale, and I hope that you will be lenient with me because it is not directly related to the amendment. However, it is relevant to the clause and I presume that there will not be a stand part debate later.
Michael Fabricant: I hope that there will be.
Mr. Bryant: Oh well. I will proceed.
As other hon. Members have already mentioned, because the spectrum function issues relating to Ofcom are drafted in a convoluted, not to say terpsichorean way, it is difficult to perceive exactly how in five or 10 years time Ofcom will understand its relationship in terms of charging public service broadcasters—Channel 4, S4C, BBC, ITV and others—for spectrum. Will the Minister clarify whether, by virtue of including subsection (3) or this clause, Ofcom will have a new power to decide to charge those television stations for spectrum use, not least by virtue of the requirement that it should examine the efficient use and management of part of the electromagnetic spectrum and the economic and other benefits arising from the use of wireless telegraphy?
The Chairman: In order to facilitate the debate and as we have already started to go down this road, I am prepared to call the hon. Gentleman. The Minister will then, no doubt, deal with all the issues at once, on the understanding that there will be no stand part debate.
| 
