Community Life
Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Lord Bishop of Peterborough
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, 1,400 communities have been involved in neighbourhood planning, but I am afraid that I will have to get back to the noble Lord on where those communities lie. There is no doubt that for community cohesion, when neighbourhoods are involved in their own destiny, for example in planning, it leads to happier communities.
The Lord Bishop of Peterborough
My Lords, community life struggles and suffers very much in rural areas as well as in urban areas. While welcoming the promise of a 95% rollout of superfast broadband, does the Minister appreciate that the other 5% represents more than 3 million people who are almost all in rural areas and will not have access to superfast broadband or, all too often, to post offices, gas supplies, public transport, local schools and so on? Is this not the time to have a royal commission?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is correct when he says that some of the infrastructure in rural communities, such as shops, schools, and post offices in particular, is their lifeblood. I commend the rural communities in, for example, Cumbria that have done their own social action project to make sure that broadband gets to their communities. The right reverend Prelate is right that the remaining 5% of the population do not have superfast broadband, but the Government are working on that.