Orders of the Day — Radio Regulatory Regime

– in the House of Commons at 8:43 am on 26 March 1985.

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Photo of Mr Barry Henderson Mr Barry Henderson , North East Fife 8:43, 26 March 1985

Despite having sat through the night, we have only 17 minutes before the end of the debate during which I must make my points and my hon. Friend the Minister must respond to them. Therefore, I shall cut significantly points that I felt it would be important to draw to the attention of the House about the radio regulatory regime. I shall concentrate—in so far as one can at this time—on some of the key points which I believe require further study, and which I hope will be further studied by the House on another occasion. Parliament has granted the Executive exceptional powers for radio regulations, stemming from the first Wireless Telegraphy Acts of the last century, and continuing to the most recent enactments. Great advances in technology have been made, and recently, the Government have committed themselves to the liberalisation of the telecommunication and radio regimes.

There is a new explosion of services—new firms are being established and new jobs are being created in response to the growing number of business and personal users. Everybody is catching up or catching on, except the radio regulating department, despite its transition from the Home Office to the Department of Trade and Industry. Parliament has given it extraordinary powers, but, if they are to be granted, there must be certainty that they will not be used harshly by the Department.

If a policeman seized a bicycle chain from somebody at a football rally, that would be good, and most of us would agree that that would be the right exercise of his powers as an officer. However, if he went along to the newspaper boy's bicycle and took the chain off it, that would be bad; and, even if it were legal, it would be an abuse of the powers conferred on that officer.

The regulatory authorities also have powers, for example, through the Telecommunications Act 1984. Section 79 (3) says: If a constable or any person authorised by the Secretary of State to exercise the power conferred by this subsection has reasonable grounds to suspect that an offence to which this section applies has been or is being committed, he may seize and detain, for the purposes of any relevant proceedings, any apperatus or the thing which appears to him to have been used in connection with or to be evidence of the commission of any such offence. In individual cases, these powers should never be used, unless we can be sure that such extreme action was the only reasonable and practical course.

How much more that consideration should apply when the equipment concerned provides a common base station for a number of users. The one near me provides a medical emergency service and private security services. However, the power exists to pull the plug on that without so much as a "by your leave" to anyone.

If such use of the power could ever be justified, it would have to be in such circumstances that the combination of evidence and necessity should be so strong that immediate and real action would be taken against the alleged transgressor. If it were not so, I hope that the House would condemn the use of the administrative procedures in the way that they have been exercised. That a business can be killed by having its equipment removed and by dragging out further administrative procedures, until the customers have disappeared, is scandalous. If the House believed that that was happening, I hope that steps would be taken to withdraw those powers.

It is not so much a question of ill-will among the radio regulatory authorities as sheer inefficiency. A case has recently been drawn to my attention in which a firm was requested to pay an incorrect amount for a licence. On 20 January 1984, 7 June 1984 and 18 February 1985 this firm applied for permission to use equipment that was additional to the equipment for which the licence was granted. Because of that application, the amount was wrong. The Department was undercharging the firm for the use of its equipment.

I believe the Department got it wrong because its records had not caught up with the information that had been provided on the dates I have mentioned. Therefore, it sought to undercharge this firm. I believe that a different arm of the Department thought that the firm had not told it all that it ought to have done. That may be the reason why harsh action was taken against the firm. However, the Department had not caught up with its paperwork.

If I may give another example, within a period of seven weeks a firm applied for 22 licences. A pre-paid acknowledgment card was supplied with each application. Only three have been returned, but no licences. Yet another firm wanted to change an existing licence to a different frequency. It applied on 27 February. No acknowledgment was received, so rather less than a month later, on 18 March, a telephone call was made to the Department. The Department denied having received the application. When the firm mentioned that it had sent the application by recorded delivery it took the Department just five minutes to change its mind. It then informed the firm that it could do nothing about it as the required files were on the other side of London. As the firm very reasonably points out, its customer required the equipment and it required the revenue but everything was held up to ransom by the arbitrary action of the Department.

I am very concerned about my discoveries in recent weeks. I hark back to some of the early discussions during the first round of proceedings on the Telecommunications Act. Concern was expressed at that time about the way in which some people behaved towards the radio regulatory authorities. I condemn the taking out on servants of the Crown of the frustration that is felt because of the way in which the Crown exercises its powers. Concern has also been expressed about the effect that the Department can have upon businesses.

If it can be shown, as I believe would be possible if we had more time in which to debate the problem, that the Department's efficiency of service is inadequate to meet the needs of today or that it is exercising its powers unreasonably, I hope that my hon. Friend will take the most urgent action to put things right. We are in business to help businesses, not to ruin them.

Photo of Mr John Butcher Mr John Butcher , Coventry South West 8:54, 26 March 1985

This Government are in the business of helping business. We would not connive at practices which would be detrimental to business interests and wealth creation, and therefore, to job creation. I am familiar with the background to the comments by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Henderson) and I shall respond in general terms on the principle of radio regulation, but I shall not go into detail, as my hon. Friend did, on a constituency basis.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me this opportunity to explain the importance of radio regulation and to outline the Government's policy on the enforcement of wireless telegraphy legislation.

Radio-borne services affect nearly every aspect of our lives. The absence or degradation of these services could undermine the economic viability of a wide range of important service industries ranging from taxi services to airline operations. The operations of defence, law and order and safety of life services are now virtually unthinkable without effective radio systems. Escalating demands for information, news, entertainment and telecommunications can also be met most readily by radio systems, and no space system is viable without effective radio communication.

Regulation of the radio frequency spectrum is a necessary pre-requisite to the effectiveness in all radio operations and all manufacturing or service industries that depend on radio. This is first because of the growing variety, scale and importance of these services and their conflicting demands for a limited natural resource. Secondly, it is because of the characteristics of radio waves and the technologies available to handle them.

The important characteristics are first that radio waves do not stop at national frontiers. A nation cannot draw up its plans unilaterally, or it will both suffer and cause harmful interference. The effective use of radio demands a very high degree of international co-operation. The more intensively the spectrum is used, the more important the international dimension becomes.

Secondly, it is a resource that can be shared by a distinctive frequency assignment to each user; by users on the same frequency assignment on a geographical basis; by users of the same frequency on a time basis; or by invoking advanced technology to superimpose transmissions.

Thirdly, it is susceptible to pollution. Harmful interference can be caused by other users of the radio spectrum and by spurious radiation produced by other electrical equipment. Without regulatory control, parts of the spectrum could be rendered useless by interference. Fourthly, it is in increasing demand.

Responsibility for radio regulation in the United Kingdom rests with the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who is responsible for United Kingdom participation in the international negotiations in the International Telecommunications Union, for licensing and law enforcement on the use of the spectrum nationally, under the powers conferred by the Wireless Telegraphy Acts 1949 and 1967, and the Telecommunications Act 1984.

At international level, administrations co-operate to produce international radio regulations and international frequency allocation tables. These tables form the basis of the United Kingdom national frequency allocation tables which are the framework within which frequency assignment and licensing is carried out. Thus, the whole process from the international agreement to the licensing of an individual taxi firm is an unbroken continuum.

The BBC, IBA, British Telecom and Mercury each have a single omnibus licence with schedules authorising the use of their various frequencies. Other users must apply for one of about 70 types of standard licences, designed to meet a variety of needs. Users of radio are grouped in frequency bands within which individual assignments for similar radio services can make the best use of radio frequencies without causing or experiencing harmful interference.

Frequency assignment processes are technically complex and are becoming more so with the growth of demand for radio services. They are distinctively different for various types of use and in different parts of the radio frequency spectrum. In order to make the best possible use of the spectrum most users of land mobile and fixed services do not have their own exclusive frequency. Frequencies can be re-used across the United Kingdom by exploiting geographical separation and terrain.

This re-use means that every proposed frequency assignment has to be co-ordinated with other existing and proposed assignments for the same frequency, together with adjacent and related frequencies. Further coordination requirements are imposed where users of a service are required to share the same frequencies with other services. To make this system work, each authorised land mobile radio user receives a licence to which is attached a schedule—

It being Nine o'clock on Wednesday morning, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.