By Alistair Carmichael

Many years ago, during the campaign for the 1987 General Election, my now wife and I hosted a house meeting in our flat in the west end of Glasgow in support of the late Roy Jenkins, then MP for Glasgow Hillhead. It was an exciting occasion for all who attended.

For me, it was exciting as it allowed me to do my bit to support the efforts of a man who then, as now, was a political inspiration. For most of my friends who attended, then in their early 20s, it was more likely exciting because Roy’s then bag carrier brought with him a mobile phone, an item of genuine curiosity.

To call what we saw then a mobile phone is to use the term very loosely. It was only mobile if you were fit enough to lug the phone and its weighty battery up the three flights of stairs to our top-floor flat. Even to call it a phone stretched things a little as the number of places where you could get a signal to use it was limited.

There can be few areas of modern life that have seen a greater pace of change than mobile telephony. Over the past 25 years and more we have seen mobile telephones go from being the plaything of the few to being a basic staple of everyday life.

As the technology and its accessibility have changed so we have seen the gap between the haves and the have-nots grow to become a chasm. Of course, in this case the divide is not always an economic one. The divide about which I write concerns those who have a signal and those who do not.

In an earlier age provision would have come, as it did with mail services, from a single provider on whom a universal service obligation could have been imposed. Instead we have had a market evolve in a more haphazard way with initially fierce competition amongst independent players. That has now settled down to a market where adequate is good enough and no one has an incentive to do more. It is now apparent that, left to their own devices, the mobile phone companies are not going to go as far as we as a nation, and as an economy, need them to go.

The last Coalition Government recognised the problem and came forward with the mobile infrastructure project providing public money for the building of masts to eliminate “not-spots”. For a variety of reasons this did not achieve the progress that had been sought and so in 2014 agreement was sought with the mobile phone operators. Promises were made and the Shangri La of connectivity was just over the horizon.

Now, as 2016 wears on, improved coverage and service seem as distant as ever. Action is needed and it is needed now.

That is why yesterday, in the House of Commons, I introduced the Mobile Communications (Contractual Obligations) Bill. It may not be the snappiest title you will ever come across but it could be an important first step in striking at the root of the problem: the imbalance of power between the mobile phone companies and their customers.

At present there is no obligation on the companies to tell us what coverage they can provide. As a constituency MP I have learned over the years that they do not even really know themselves. My next-door neighbour in Orkney was recently told quite solemnly but his provider that the mast serving our community provided a service 99.8 per cent of the time. He and I know differently.

My Bill would give consumers the right to break contracts where the mobile operators do not keep their side of the bargain. This will not change things overnight, but it would at least provide an incentive for someone to win a competitive advantage by upping their game. The mobile companies must understand that, as customers, we are no longer prepared to tolerate a service that is adequate at best; we want a service that is good. My bill is one signal they cannot afford to ignore.

Alistair Carmichael is Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland.