Rural Communities in Scotland: Broadband

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Digital (Matt Hancock)]

This has been a robust debate and I want to answer the points that were made very clearly. The debate was initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), and I am delighted that he and the other new Scottish Conservative MPs have done so much over the last few months to put Scottish broadband right under the spotlight. It deserves that attention, because it deserves to be better. I look forward to visiting my hon. Friend’s constituency very soon, as he asked. I will address all the questions that he raised.

I also agree with much of what the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) said, not least that digital is vital for the future economy, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) that inequalities must not be allowed to emerge. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill called for accurate descriptions of speeds actually available, and I look forward to progress on that front coming very soon.

My hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) argued very strongly that broadband is no longer a “nice to have” but a modern necessity. She explained why it is so important, and how disappointed she and her constituents are that delivery of superfast broadband in Scotland has not been good enough. We need to see an improvement. I wanted to set that out today.

In Scotland, around two-thirds of premises have access to superfast broadband through commercial roll-out by BT, Virgin and others, but one third cannot get it through that commercial roll-out, so after 2010 we introduced a subsidised superfast broadband programme in Scotland, as we did across the rest of the UK. We gave £100 million of UK taxpayers’ money to the Scottish Government to deliver that programme. Today, more than 92% of premises in Scotland now have access. That is good news, but it is well short of the Scottish Government’s target of 95% by the end of the year. Unfortunately, Scotland’s roll-out of superfast broadband is behind the pace of the rest of the UK, where access is now more than 94% and on track to hit 95% by the end of the year. It is also behind Wales, where we also gave funding after 2010, and where the Welsh Government have not bungled the delivery like the SNP Government have in Scotland.

[Alan Brown]

Will the Minister explain how the allocation of £100 million came about? That £100 million is roughly one third of what is needed to achieve the 95% target, whereas the £520 million allocation to England is half. How did that funding formula come about?

[Matt Hancock]

The Scottish Government got more than their fair share because they had a higher proportion needing supported rather than commercial access.

Until now, the Scottish Government have been happy to take the credit when things have gone right, but pass the buck when things have gone wrong—we saw more attempts at that this morning—so I am going to set out what has been going on. In 2014, we gave the Scottish Government more than £20 million for phase 2 of their superfast roll-out. Three years later, they have not only failed to sign that contract, but have not even opened the procurement yet. The Scottish Government are three years behind the fastest English local authorities in contracting for their roll-out.

In fact, Scotland is behind every single English local authority, behind the Welsh Government, behind Northern Ireland in getting going on phase 2 of its broadband roll-out. My own county of Suffolk, for example, has not only contracted phase 2; it has already contracted phase 3. There is a similar story in most other parts of the country—but not in Scotland. Worse, the Scottish Government project will not have contracts signed until the end of next year, which will be after the roll-out of phase 1 has finished, so they risk broadband delivery companies downing tools after completing phase 1 of the project, before phase 2 is ready to go. Elsewhere in the country, they got phase 2 going before the end of phase 1.

It is a great cause for regret that the Scottish Government have for more than three years sat on £20 million of UK taxpayers’ money, which could have been used to deliver broadband for the people of Scotland. The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) raised the question of that £20 million. We offered it in 2014. A further £60 million is being returned from the first contract because of the level of take-up in phase 1, and another £14.5 million from underspending on that contract, and £30 million from city deals. In total, there is £125 million of UK taxpayers’ money waiting to be spent in Scotland—waiting for the Scottish Government to get on with it. So you can see why we and the people of Scotland are rightly frustrated at the Scottish Government dragging their feet.

Throughout the process, BDUK has offered technical support and assistance to Digital Scotland to try to get things going, but it seems that the Scottish Government’s fixation with pipe dreams of independence has distracted them from the job of delivering to the people they are meant to serve. It is part of a pattern.

As a result of our experience of delivering superfast broadband through the Scottish Government thus far, we have decided that for the next generation of broadband technology—full fibre—we will instead deal directly with local authorities across Scotland, as we do in England. We have already had a fantastic response, and I am looking forward to going to Aberdeenshire next week to see their pilot of a local full-fibre network project and to see progress on a test bed for 5G. I look forward to working constructively with Digital Scotland to deliver on the next steps of the superfast project and with local authorities across Scotland to deliver the next generation of technology that is coming rapidly.

[Brendan O'Hara]

The Minister said a moment ago that BDUK is on hand to offer technical solutions. Perhaps he is coming to my direct question on the problems of GigaPlus Argyll. BDUK offered no solutions; it absolutely abandoned GigaPlus Argyll and ignored me, as the Member of Parliament, on numerous occasions.

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman should have been talking to Digital Scotland, because we gave the money to Digital Scotland to deliver, and for three years it has sat on that money and done nothing with it. What we need from the Scottish Government is not noise, but action for the thousands of people who have seen nothing but buffering while the Scottish Government have sat on their hands and sat on the money.

[Brendan O'Hara]

So, for clarity, is the Minister saying that BDUK has no role to play in the position of GigaPlus Argyll, despite it having been set up through BDUK? Is he saying that BDUK has no role to play for an elected MP to contact?

[Matt Hancock]

In future, BDUK and the UK Government will be delivering our full-fibre, next generation technology directly to local authorities in Scotland, instead of through the Scottish Government, because we have been so disappointed with the failure of the Scottish Government to deliver on money that has already been allocated.

[Ross Thomson]

Aberdeen has suffered from poor digital connectivity for too long. UK Government grants of up to £3,000 to get gigabit broadband are very welcome. Does the Minister agree with me that that investment will help support Aberdeen to continue to compete on the international stage in areas such as oil and gas, food and drink and life sciences? Does he share my belief that Aberdeen City Council would do a much better job of delivering that locally than the SNP Government in Edinburgh?

[Matt Hancock]

I wholeheartedly support that and I look forward to working with local authorities right across Scotland, of whatever political persuasion, as we have with local authorities across England whatever their political persuasion, and as we have successfully with the Labour Welsh Government, who have delivered better for Wales than the Scottish Government have delivered for the people of Scotland. This is not about party politics; it is about how to best get decent broadband to the people. That is what I care about. We have had failures from the SNP Government, so we are going to go direct to local authorities, and I look forward to working with Members right across Scotland to make sure we can get that delivery.

In the meantime, of course I look forward to working with Digital Scotland on the contracts that are already in place to get to the end of that roll-out. I plead with the Scottish Government to get a move on. We stand ready to help get broadband to the people of Scotland. We will do everything we can to make that happen, but our patience with the Scottish Government when it comes to the next generation of delivery has simply run out.