To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment he has made of the impact that the introduction of the ending of the duopoly in telecommunications, as outlined in his Department's recent white paper on telecommunications policy, will have on consumer choice.

The Government's telecommunications policy will ensure that consumers have the widest possible choice of high-quality services at the most competitive price.

There will be a wider choice in all aspects of telecommunications from equipment and services to networks themselves.

Has not there been a remarkable transformation in telecommunications over the past decade? Does my right hon. Friend recall that only 10 years ago there was only one supplier of telephones and telephone services and that people sometimes had to wait for weeks or months to get a telephone? Today, any number of companies are providing hardware and telephone lines. Is not that a substantial endorsement of the policies of deregulation, liberalisation and privatisation which the Government have followed?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I recall that at the beginning of the last decade, when British Telecom was still nationalised, about 250,000 people were waiting for more than six months to have lines installed. I am glad to say that the number of people in such a position now is negligible. Not only have the changes been dramatic over the past decade, but, as a result of the liberalisation that we have announced and the greater competition and choice, we foresee even greater changes in the coming decade.

Will the Secretary of State be honest enough to admit that selling further British Telecom shares has nothing to do with more competition, nothing to do with addressing the 500,000 complaints that British Telecom receives every year or securing the necessary research and development to ensure that new technology is available and that mobile phones will work, and nothing to do with increasing telephone ownership or obtaining more investment, but everything to do with failed dogma and raising money? The Government are going for the loot to try to solve the poll tax fiasco.

I welcome the hon. Gentleman's question and the prominence that he gives to the Labour party's love of state ownership and its desire to restore British Telecom to nationalised ownership. Nationalisation has nothing to do with choice, the consumer or creating a dynamic industry such as we have created. It would certainly not have made this country the telecommunications hub of western Europe which it has become, with major companies moving their telecommunications headquarters from north America to London to take advantage of the liberalisation that we have created.

Is not there tremendous potential for the development of telecommunications and for the creation of jobs in telecommunications, voice telephony, data and entertainment? Will not that be a growth area in which Britain can take a tremendous lead? Would not the Opposition's plans to renationalise British Telecom destroy those prospects?

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The jobs created by the proliferation of services built on the back of a liberalised telecommunications regime are important. We already have value-added services on the network, double those of France and Germany, and I foresee a great new source of jobs in the cabling of Britain through the cable television networks as well as an increase in the number of trunk networks following the end of the duopoly regime.