§ Mr. OatenTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister (1) pursuant to the answer to the honourable Member for Tunbridge Wells of 24 June,Official Report, column 672W, on mobile phone masts, what assessment his Department and the Working Group have made of the proposed Deloitte & Touche review of the 10 Commitments voluntary code of practice adopted by the five mobile telephone operators; [77004]
(2) if he will take steps to ensure that the review of the code of practice adopted by the five mobile telephone operators includes the extent to which (a) members of the public, (b) school governors, (c) councillors and (d) 872W other interested parties were consulted on siting and erection of mobile phone masts as per Commitment 1 of that code. [77003]
§ Mr. McNultyThe review by Deloitte & Touche, commissioned by the Federation of Electronics Industry (FEI), is a thorough assessment of the operators' ten commitments. The review has not yet been completed, but we expect to see the results by the end of 2002.
Commitment 1 by the mobile phone operators is to develop, with other stakeholders clear standards and procedures to deliver significantly improved consultation with local communities. The operators' performance against this will be assessed as part of the review and Deloitte and Touche will be talking to local community groups and local authorities.
§ Mr. OatenTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will place in the Library copies of the site share statistics for mobile telecommunications masts. [77616]
§ Mr. McNultyThe site share statistics for mobile telecommunications masts are gathered on behalf of the telecommunications industry by the Federation of Electronics Industry (FEI).
They are collated quarterly and show: the numbers of mast that are sharable; the numbers that are shared; and the percentage of shared masts to shareable masts. We will place the latest version of the statistics in the Library at the earliest opportunity.