Clause 3 - General duties of Ofcom
Communications Bill
5:15 pm
Mr Nick Harvey (North Devon, Liberal Democrat)
I should like to speak in support of amendment No. 1, and should also like to refer to amendments Nos. 150, 153 and 152.
Amendment No. 1, which was moved by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire, is based on a recommendation made by the Joint Committee. I regret that the Government did not accept the view put forward by that Committee. We heard from the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East that Sir Bryan Carsberg acted as advisor to the Joint Committee. I found Sir Bryan's oral advice on the
issue that the amendment addresses to be quite telling. His concern was that if a number of main duties enjoyed equal status, when a regulator made a ruling, leaning on one of those main duties, cunning lawyers for the aggrieved party might appear at a judicial review pointing to one of the other main duties and saying that it should have taken the regulator in a completely different direction. If four main duties enjoy equal status, there surely might be cases in which one of the duties would take the regulator in one direction, and a second duty would take it in another.
Sir Bryan, with his experience at both Oftel and the Office of Fair Trading, thought that the regulator would be in a much stronger position if one duty, clearly mentioned in the Bill and described by Parliament, enjoyed dominance over the others. If the regulator founded its decision on that duty, it would be in a stronger position in the hypothetical judicial review to fend off the well-heeled lawyers who appeared on behalf of the aggrieved party to a decision. I encourage the Minister to give further thought to the matter.