Shared Rural Network

Debate between Baroness Barran and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Monday 28th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

On this side of the House—obviously, I cannot regulate other sides—we certainly do not think it laughably unambitious. Superfast broadband coverage reached 96% of premises in April this year, which is up from 45% in 2010. That means that over 5 million additional homes and businesses have superfast broadband available, thanks to the Government’s investment in the superfast broadband programme. We have talked about the universal service offer and I hear noble Lords’ reservations, but it means that from March next year customers will be able to request broadband connections. In addition, we have announced £5 billion of funding for the next stage of the Government’s broadband buildout. I see that as anything but laughably unambitious.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I have often nagged away about this subject because it is vital to international competitiveness and modern public services. I welcome the Statement, our industry’s initiative and the mast sharing that seems to be implicit in what we have heard today. However, can I press my noble friend on what coverage we can expect both from broadband, which she touched on—how many people will actually have it on a reasonable timescale and at reasonable speeds—and from mobile? Who and where are the 5% in the figures she announced—or 8% if you want connectivity to the big four, which I think most of us probably do—and who will miss out? Is it people and businesses, in which case I would like to know what numbers we are talking about, or just remote rural fields, the tops of mountains and certain rooms in the Palace of Westminster? It would be good to understand a little more clearly what the scale of the problem is and how quickly we can tackle it, because of the overall importance of this initiative, which the Government have rightly grasped.

[Baroness Barran]

I think I will need to write to my noble friend with some of the detail on her questions. I understand that the areas that will miss out are genuinely those which are both extremely sparsely populated and look more like the top of a mountain—that is, from a physical engineering point of view, the challenge of building the infrastructure is great. However, I am happy to write to my noble friend to clarify if I have misled her in any way.