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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, Clause 3 of the Communications Act 2003 sets out the general duties of Ofcom. The first subsection describes Ofcom’s general duties towards citizens and consumers, and the second subsection sets out its detailed functions. It is significant that on the plaque in the lobby of Ofcom’s office only the second set of duties is commemorated. The duties to the citizen and to the consumer are missing. I think that that has been Ofcom’s attitude throughout its life—that it feels that its principal duties are to itself and to the industry and that the inconvenient subsection (1) is to be ignored. So that is the attitude with which I approach subsection (2), which I wish to remove with Amendment 1. It is of specific concern that we are loading on to Ofcom new duties to promote investment in electronic communications and infrastructure, and for the investment resulting from that to be efficient. Given Ofcom’s open disregard of its duties to the citizen and to the consumer, that is putting too much emphasis on the wrong side of things. If we consider Ofcom’s attitude combined with those words, we are creating something which over time will reduce competition and the breadth of services available to the consumer. It is also of concern to me whether it really is right that a body which is supposed to be an independent regulator should be responsible for promoting investment, a duty which is more commonly separated from that of regulation. This confusion of powers and principles is likely to cause problems over the long term. Deletion, of course, is not the only solution to this problem. We could try to bring into these clauses something which reminded Ofcom that the citizen and the consumer are actually its principal concerns. We could bring in a requirement that, to keep these matters in its mind, Ofcom should report at intervals to Parliament or the Secretary of State on competition and on the breadth of services available to consumers. However, it seems to me that, as things are at the moment, loading these rather unusual duties on to a body which ought to be a regulator—which, as I say, has left some duties out of the plaque in its lobby and always been less than mindful of its duties to the consumer and the citizen—and to give it this additional bias in terms of industry and efficiency, at a time when the breadth of opportunities to the citizen seems to be exploding and when the industries that Ofcom regulates have in many instances dragged their feet and been slow to take advantage of these and tried to oppose the tide of change, is the wrong way to be looking. We ought to be looking to redirect Ofcom towards the consumer and the citizen and not to be focusing on the support of the industry. I beg to move.