Broadband

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Baroness O'Cathain

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, nearly 80% of homes and businesses have superfast broadband, yet only 22% of all broadband connections are superfast.

[Baroness O'Cathain (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of how great a social exclusion issue this is becoming? Only today the Carnegie UK Trust and Ipsos MORI brought out research showing that it is now a serious issue, particularly in Scotland. What are we going to do? It is not the speed of broadband that matters in this case but the actual access to it.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I completely agree with my noble friend. As I said, a bare minimum of two megabits per second will be in place by the end of this year and in Scotland by the end of 2017. As I said to my noble friend Lord Holmes, we, too, regard this as an essential service today.