John Robertson (Glasgow, Anniesland): I want to declare an interest, as recorded in the Register of Members’ Interests. I worked for BT for 31 years. I am a member of Connect-the union for professionals in communications-and my researcher is funded by Connect. I am also the chair of the all-party group on telecommunications, so it is probably safe to say that I have more than a passing interest in this subject.

I prepared a large speech, but as the debate has progressed, many points have been raised on which questions need to be answered. Unfortunately, as many of those issues were raised by Opposition Members who have since left the Chamber I cannot put my questions to them, so I shall make my points to the Minister for E-Commerce and Competitiveness, my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Mr. Timms) .

It is crucial that Ofcom follows the mandate stipulated in the Bill and that we are confident that the House can monitor that effectively. It is also important that we and the Secretary of State examine how Ofcom does its job. The Select Committees on Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee and on Trade and Industry have considered the Bill, but we should think about setting up a new Select Committee to deal primarily with Ofcom.

Ofcom is composed of five bodies that cover everything relating to communications and broadcasting and is likely to be one of the most important bodies set up by the Government. It will probably be more important than anything done in this field during the 18 years of the previous Conservative Government.

The existing structure has not resulted in detailed or regular assessment. The current regulatory bodies do not work. I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil (Mr. O’Neill) who said how well Oftel had worked. I remember the problems that we experienced with Atlantic Telecom when, as was pointed out in a previous speech, Oftel was as much good as a chocolate fireguard. I hope that Ofcom will deal much better with problems in broadcasting than Oftel did with problems in telecommunications. Many of my constituents found that their businesses were going down the tubes because telephone numbers listed in “Yellow Pages” and other publications no longer existed.

The Joint Committee which undertook pre-legislative scrutiny did an excellent job and its members are to be commended for their work. However, they missed one point in relation to clause 24, which deals with training. Training and education for staff in the broadcasting industry will be covered by Ofcom, but the same provision does not seem to apply to the telecommunications side of the business, where no scrutiny is provided for.

In effect, that means that in times of plenty when business is booming, a company such as BT, for which I used to work, could supply all the new companies that spring up. Those companies could cherry pick all the good workers and experts. But what happens if there are no companies to provide training? What will happen if there is no one to train people in the new technology that is being developed?

A recent study produced some startling figures. According to the European Information Technology Observatory, the number of unfilled vacancies in the ICT and e-business sectors in the European Union is expected to rise from 2.23 million in 2001 to 3.67 million in 2003-a 65 per cent. increase in the number of people who will be unable do the job. We have to deal with that problem.

New technology is not something that people can just pick up. We have to train people in it. We have to train them to maintain it. The Bill needs to be better balanced. It seems to suggest that we must provide education and training for broadcasting but that people can do as they please on the telecommunications side. We need to ensure that people in both sectors are trained.

The hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale) said that we needed to examine the regulation of mobiles and mobile companies. He pointed out that as such companies had experienced great growth, they should be regulated. However, those companies amassed customers and grew so fast precisely because they were not subject to strong regulation.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) pointed out that there was no broadband in his country-nor is there in mine or in many parts of England. Part of the problem is that the regulator prevented companies such as BT from getting out into the marketplace.

These companies were so busy looking over their shoulder to see what the regulator was saying that they missed the boat, and two years down the line they had an excellent product but could not market it because everyone had forgotten what the product was. We have reached the stage now where people in places such as the rural areas of Scotland and Wales, and for that matter England, cannot get broadband because the company cannot afford to put staff out there. If we had started back when there was a boom, we might all have broadband; even if we did not, we would certainly have better companies than we do today.
Mr. Mole: Does my hon. Friend accept, in the context of the argument about the rolling out of broadband to rural areas, that we need to bear in mind that there are fundamental physical limitations to the reach of technologies such as ADSL, based on the competence of existing technology; that it is only with the creation of new technology such as the delivery of broadband by satellite that some of these areas can be reached; and that we shall have these problems again when we have high data rate digital subscriber line and very high data rate digital subscriber line?
John Robertson: I thank my hon. Friend; he is absolutely right. I am sure that people in Wales and Scotland can identify with that. They will have to pay thousands of pounds for something for which other people will be able to pay hundreds or less. We must lighten the regulator’s grip and allow companies to grow.

The hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) mentioned Deutsche Telecom. Earlier in the year, I visited Deutsche Telecom in Munich to look at its ADSL and I was surprised when I discovered how quickly the company was growing. It has been growing because its regulator does not impose strong commitments on it. The company saw a niche in the market. It cut its prices. It went and did it, and only then asked the regulator whether it was okay. The company did not think about what the regulator was going to say, put forward a business case, take months to go to the regulator then suddenly find out that the regulator now agreed to what it was proposing.
Brian White (Milton Keynes, North-East): Is it not true that one of the reasons why Deutsche Telecom did that was that it knew that it had to divest itself of its cable companies, and to stifle competition it put broadband into the areas when it was going to have to divest itself of those companies?
John Robertson: My hon. Friend is correct, but we are now lagging behind with broadband. We must get broadband out there, and if we are to bring the UK up to the standard of some of our competitors, we need to get out there now.

Another thing was missing from the Bill. One group that was never mentioned as a stakeholder was employees. Employees work at the sharp end. They know about their companies. Yes, they may look after their own interests when negotiating with management, but they know more about the business than the management force do, and they should have been regarded as stakeholders and allowed to participate in the advisory bodies, because they can probably contribute more than most. Not only do they have knowledge of the companies for which they work, but they are customers, so they have a very firm grounding. Those are the people who are missing: the people who do the work, who have the knowledge about how the product works. I know many very good managers who know how to run companies, but they know absolutely nothing about their product. I believe that in the case of BT and the selling of broadband to the country, that has been the main problem: the people who knew most about broadband were not the ones who were marketing it, and we all know what has happened.

I feel passionately about this subject, and if I am fortunate enough to be asked to serve on the Committee, I shall take great pleasure in doing so. There are lots of other aspects of the Bill that I should like to discuss with the relevant Ministers, which probably ensures that I shall not be asked to be a Committee member. I believe that communication is the No. 1 thing in this country; we all need to communicate. One of the best things that we can do to make that possible is to give it to the people and ensure that they know how to use it and can get access to it.

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