Shared Rural Network

Debate between Lord Reay and Baroness Barran

Monday 28th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

All the commitments being made are minimum commitments. Clearly, if there is the opportunity to deliver more, the ambition is there—but we do not want to overpromise at this stage. A lot of the investment will go into areas such as those the noble Lord described, which today have no coverage— including, I hope, close to where he lives, and certainly more widely across Northern Ireland.

[Lord Reay (Con)]

My Lords, I have a property on the North Lancashire/Cumbria border, and we are serviced by a small community broadband provider which provides the fastest download speeds in the UK—so we get full fibreoptic provided by B4RN, known as Broadband for the Rural North. Unfortunately, the former Chancellor took away EIS tax relief last year, which has made it more difficult for the company to raise money, but over the past five years it has put together a service for about 5,000 properties. The speeds it provides are far greater than anything BT can provide at the moment. So I urge the Minister, when determining policy on broadband rollout, to communicate with the leaders of small broadband providers, who are providing a valuable service throughout the country for the most isolated communities.

[Baroness Barran]

My noble friend gives an interesting example of some of the creativity going on in this area in our rural communities, and I shall certainly share that with colleagues in the department. We have made a start in trying to build rural gigabit connectivity with a £200 million programme that is upgrading public sector buildings to act as gigabit-capable connectivity hubs—that is rather difficult to say—and trying to make them as attractive as possible for investors to encourage further deployment beyond the hubs. I will certainly share my noble friend’s thoughts with colleagues.