Broadband

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Sarah Newton

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Vaizey]

I know that the hon. Lady has nothing but admiration for my abilities. That is certainly something that I want to look at and, given that I said that in an open debate, she can be assured that we will look at and discuss that with BT and others.

Let me go back to basics—it is good to see one of the leading members of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), returning to his seat, as I have already prayed in aid the National Audit Office. No doubt, he will seek to correct that position.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

While the Minister is going back to basics, I want to applaud him and the efforts in Cornwall on superfast broadband. He rightly points to some good results. However, I would really like him to address the point, which he mentioned, of the people who will not get fibre. What will we do to ensure that they have access to alternative technologies? Where those technologies are satellite, which—as the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) rightly pointed out—are much more expensive than BT packages, what will we do to enable them to have equality of access and ensure that they are not priced out?

[Mr Vaizey]

I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes. Time is pressing, but I will answer her question now. We were clear about 90% coverage. People can question whether that target was ambitious enough, but when the programme was going well enough, we found more money—the Treasury gave us an additional £250 million—to go to 95%.

I stress that that was not us moving or revising the target. We said, “Phase 1 is going well. We think we can go further. Here is £250 million and we think we can go to 95%, again by 2017.” To answer the question from the hon. Member for Hartlepool, yes, some of those contracts extend beyond 2017. I used to be a lawyer. Thankfully, I am no longer, but, if he has ever met a lawyer, he will know that if they could write into a contract a completion date in 2117, they would do so to give themselves enough wiggle room. However, the end of the contract does not signify when the project is likely to end.

Of course we want to get to 100%, and all the advice we received said that getting to that last 5% could cost £2 billion. Those were, to put it bluntly, back of a fag packet calculations—they were by sophisticated people and on sophisticated fag packets, but that is what they were—so the previous Secretary of State, my Friend the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), who deserves a lot of credit for the work she did across a range of issues, found £10 million from the Treasury for some pilot schemes, which are now well under way. Some of them are delivering superfast broadband and we are auditing them at the moment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) is quite right that satellite is quickly emerging as one of the key solutions for the last 5%. We now want to do an analysis of what that is likely to cost, go to the Treasury with an evaluation, and think how best that can be delivered. That will probably involve some of the smaller providers. That is the plan and hopefully by 2018-19 we can be close to 100% superfast broadband access.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton said that he wants the pace to be picked up. We have passed the 2 million homes mark under the programme and we are adding 40,000 homes a week—50,000 a week in some instances. However, this is an engineering project and it cannot be delivered overnight.

I want to talk about competition. We had an open competition: we put in place a state aid approved framework contract and anyone could have bid for the contracts. At the beginning, a consortium led by Fujitsu did indeed bid against BT. However, there are constraints when bidding for such contracts. To take Connecting Devon and Somerset, for example, the aim is to try to connect 360,000 homes, but there are not many players in that space, much as I would wish there to be. If a company takes money from the taxpayer—I think it was the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome who asked who owned the assets—there will be open access, so the TalkTalks of this world will provide their retail services on such networks, built partly by the taxpayer and partly by BT. That is open access. That is why, for example, a player such as Virgin Media, which some might think has the scale to compete against BT, did not want to play in this space, because it does not want to run an open-access network. I again give credit to the last Government for the structural separation of Openreach from BT. Openreach is an open platform to which others are allowed access, at prices that are regulated by Ofcom—

Mix 96 (Digital Radio Switchover)

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Sarah Newton

Thursday 28th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent case. She is right that many of our colleagues would like to be here to contribute but cannot because they are driving to their constituencies. Does she agree that it would be great if the Minister could agree to meet a wider group of colleagues who would like to stick up for stations such as—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

Name your station!

[Sarah Newton]

Pirate FM.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Sarah Newton

Monday 26th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention—I hesitate to say that it is good to hear from somebody who knows what they are talking about, in case he makes a hostile intervention in a minute. I absolutely hear the point he makes. The protection of intellectual property is paramount. We need to bring the intellectual property regime up to date, but I for one do not want to rob Peter to pay Paul. It is absolutely right that content creators are paid for what they create.

Let me say something at which the whole House will rejoice: I am coming to the end of my remarks. However, if all those who said that they wanted to make an intervention still want to, they have a small window, as I perorate towards my conclusions.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s cue. Creative industries are vital to Cornwall, but so is creating high-quality food products. There is growing concern throughout Cornwall about the possible unintended consequences of the Budget and about the undoubtedly real threat to the Cornish pasty of the pasty tax. May I seek my hon. Friend’s reassurance that the concerns of pasty makers in my constituency are being listened to and that a solution can be found?

[Mr Vaizey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which I know the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will respond to fully when he winds up. I congratulate her county on receiving the award for being Britain’s best tourist destination for the third year, and I congratulate her on the extraordinary energy with which she represents her constituency. She and I have had many meetings to discuss various issues in her constituency. [Interruption.] You are looking at the clock, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I shall wrap up; however, let me tell my hon. Friend that I hear what she says about the Cornish pasty issue, and I am assured that the Treasury is looking at it seriously.

With a Budget that introduced the largest ever increase in personal allowances, so as to reward work, the lowest corporation tax rate in the G7, so that Britain is open for business, tax reliefs for our creative industries, increased investment in science and technology, and plans to create the best broadband network in Europe, we are well placed to realise the Chancellor’s ambition of making Britain the technology hub of the UK. I do not think that our success to date is “drivel”; I think that Britain is known around the world for its creativity and the success of its creative industries. We on this side of the House intend to ensure that we maintain and increase that success.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Sarah Newton

Thursday 28th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

What the hon. Gentleman can take from my answer is that the BBC is making a series of proposals that would need to be approved by the BBC Trust, and that I know from my own campaigning to save 6Music that the views of hon. Members can have some influence on BBC decisions.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I understand what the Minister is saying about it being for the BBC Trust to make decisions about how to cut and organise services, but will he send out a message loud and clear to the BBC Trust that it should not be cutting BBC local radio, which is listened to in Cornwall by more people than listen to BBC Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3 or Radio 4?

[Mr Vaizey]

I think that my hon. Friend, in her inimitable way, has sent out a message loud and clear to the BBC Trust.