EXCLUSIVE Fears for Britain's elderly over digital landline switchover...as minster admits he can never get hold of his father on the phone

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

A government minister has warned he cannot guarantee that all elderly and vulnerable people will be safely switched over to digital landlines - as he revealed he can never get hold of his own father on the phone.
Minister for the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology Sir Chris Bryant exclusively told MailOnline he'd be 'fibbing' if he promised every household will be transferred to internet-based landlines safely, with telecare devices still working.
His comments coincide with a new government campaign aimed at raising awareness about the switchover, to encourage vulnerable and elderly people to get in touch with their landline provider for assistance.
Telecoms firms including BT, Sky and Virgin are currently switching every household in Britain to new internet-based landlines, as ageing copper wires are increasingly unreliable and at risk of failure. The transition is expected to be completed by early 2027.
The tech giants are moving to the final phase of turning off the UK's old copper wire system, and forced migrations to a new digital service have resumed.
After previously telling MailOnline the fear of people being left with telecare devices - alarms that call for help in the case of an emergency - kept him up at night, Sir Chris says he is now more confident the correct support systems are in place to transition people safely.
Asked if he could guarantee everyone would always be able to call emergency services after being switched over to the new phone line, he said: 'I can't guess what terrible set of circumstances there might be in one particular street.
'Sometimes if you're in an area where mobile connectivity is very poor, and obviously some older people won't have a mobile phone. I can never persuade my father to have a mobile phone which is really irritating, it makes him very difficult to get hold of.
'I can't say 100 percent, I'd be fibbing, but what we've tried to do is put in as many different measures to make sure that as many different people in as many sets of circumstances are protected.
'It might be that the cable's down, or all sorts of different things that might arise, and you want to mitigate against all of those, but it's impossible to get to 100 percent.'
He added that his department had written to every local authority to request details of vulnerable people in their area to be passed onto telecoms firms - and that 95 percent have provided this information. This leaves five percent of councils which have not.
In 2023, telecoms firms were forced to halt non-voluntary upgrades following several incidents of personal alarms failing in emergencies.
Some 1.8 million people in the UK rely on life-saving telecare devices to sound the alarm in the case of a medical emergency or fall. The devices function by being linked to a wearer's landline or mobile phone.
There have been concerns for years over the transition to digital as, while traditional landline phones continue working in the case of a blackout or internet outage, internet-based phonelines do not.
Ofcom, the industry regulator, ruled that telecoms firms must provide a back-up to the landline lasting at least one hour to all vulnerable people in case they need assistance during an outage. But Sir Chris said this is not enough, and the majority of firms have agreed to provide between four and seven hours.
But amid data published last year that revealed millions of people still have no idea about the ongoing transition, he added that he doesn't think elderly people 'actually need to understand' what is being done to their landline, as long as it happens.
The minister said: 'Two thirds of people have already been done. And probably they don't even know that that's what's happened.
'I don't care about that, what I care about is whether the telecare device around somebody's auntie's neck still works when they go from one system to another.
'That's what I care about and that's what we're making sure happens. And it may be that some elderly people don't actually need to understand what's happening to the cable outside their home as long as the system works.'
He told MailOnline the firms 'needed help' with the transition: 'On almost day one of me arriving in post I said [the switchover] is one of the things I want to focus on, and within weeks we had a meeting of all the operators and they were really responsive.
'I think they all wanted to move together, they wanted a sense of where government wanted them to go, they needed some help actually.
'They wouldn't know who the vulnerable people are with telecare devices, the only people who know that are the social care departments of local authorities.
'I could help get that information so we could work together and I think it felt like a very productive round table that we had.'
But the minister also warned that severe weather events and local disasters could still pose a major risk to vulnerable people who rely on landlines.
'A few years ago in one of the big storms, we had big flooding in one of my areas in the Rhondda.
'Now in that situation you're not going to have any kind of electricity, nothing's going to work, it's probably going to be out for several days and there's nothing you can do about that.'
He told how, before the last election, a lorry drove straight into a telephone cabinet in his constituency, knocking out services for a week.
'I was very angry just as a constituency MP, this was before the last election, I didn't feel that the operators were actually sorting that out, responding quickly enough. But that was a massive accident, the lorry had gone straight into the cabinet, and the entire village was out.
'And I know there was an incidence there where somebody was not able to make a phone call to get an ambulance.'
A checklist - which telecoms giants are understood to have signed up to during Sir Chris' first meeting with firms last summer - means all 'vulnerable' customers will be able to have an engineer visit their household to support them through the transition.
The engineer will then test any telecare devices before leaving to ensure they are still working. If any issue occurs, there is the option to return the household to their old landline until this can be fixed, if no alternative is available.
And vulnerable households will be given back-up devices to protect them in the case of a power cut or internet outage - with firms pledging to ensure this exceeds Ofcom's minimum recommendation that such devices provide one hour of battery power.
Firms have been instructed to ensure that no telecare user will be migrated to digital landline services without the communication provider, the customer, or the telecare service provider confirming that the user has a compatible and functioning telecare solution in place.