Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Julian Sturdy(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
4. What steps his Department is taking to support tourism in York since the recent flooding in that area.
Communications Infrastructure and Flooding: North West
Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Julian Sturdy(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
The Minister will be well aware that not only the north-west but York suffered badly from flooding and we lost telecommunications for a number of days across the city. What can he do to bring the telecommunications industry to account to deliver a flood resilience scheme that can match the country’s need?
Mr Vaizey
My hon. Friend is quite right to bring me to account and ensure that I return to the subject matter in hand, but I wanted to mention the review because it will take telecoms resilience into account. I will go on to talk about that in more detail in a minute, but it is important to note that that work is in addition to that of the ministerial recovery group, which was established to ensure that local areas continue to receive co-ordinated support as they rebuild after the winter’s flooding.
Let me turn to what happened with telecoms infrastructure as a result of the floods. It is the case that it was affected badly in places, so my hon. Friend’s point was well made. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Rochdale pointed out, telecoms is essential to all our small businesses as well as to us all in our lives, so any disruption has a major impact on our ability to go about our lives and run our businesses. It is interesting to note that the main disruption was caused not by the telecoms network being taken out, but by power failures in the region. However, flooding did affect two key infrastructure sites: one was at the BT exchange in York and the other was at a Vodafone site—actually it was at a Cable & Wireless site, which is owned by Vodafone—in Leeds. The flooding in York on 27 December affected about 50,000 fixed-line and 46,000 broadband customers and there were knock-on impacts on mobile operators whose networks went through the exchange. BT brought the system back online within 24 hours and it worked with the fire service to protect the exchange, because Storm Frank was on its way.
The flooding at the Vodafone site, which also happened on 27 December, disrupted 999 services for a matter of hours as well as some emergency services communications. I stress that I was in touch with both companies throughout the incidents and the national alert for telecoms was invoked several times. That process brings together representatives from the UK’s major communications providers with Government bodies to ensure that everyone across the industry and Government has the latest information on what is happening.
In relation to Rochdale, there were four separate incidents that involved damaged cables. Two were quite complex, technical cable repairs that involved several thousand connections. The other two were located under carriageways, one of which was not damage caused by flooding per se but damage to a BT cable caused by other contractors. Obviously, it takes time to locate the exact point of the cable break and such repairs require permission from the local council to dig up the carriageways and various permits from councils in connection with access to manhole covers, putting traffic-light controls in place and so on.
Rural Broadband (North Yorkshire)
Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Julian Sturdy(10 years, 3 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
indicated assent.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Julian Sturdy(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
The Minister will be aware that North Yorkshire has taken great strides in rolling out superfast broadband across the county. The project is near completion. Will the Minister consider early release of the phase 2 funding for areas such as North Yorkshire to help bridge the digital divide in those areas?
Mr Vaizey
May I use this opportunity to congratulate North Yorkshire on forging ahead with the superfast broadband programme, which has made astonishing progress? I hear what my hon. Friend says. We are working out the details of how to allocate the next tranche of funding to take superfast broadband to 95% and I will keep him informed.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Julian Sturdy(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
T3. In the light of the digital radio action plan, can the Secretary of State or a Minister assure us that the Government will specifically support local commercial radio stations before the switchover?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
Yes, we certainly intend to ensure that the move towards digital radio does not discriminate against local commercial radio stations.