Broadband: Full-fibre Coverage

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a familiar and very valid point. The £3 billion to £5 billion that I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, will be on the basis of outside in. We want to make sure that the areas that are hardest to reach will be the ones to receive the government money. It is largely a question of competition. In cities and urban areas, there is more competition and the market is better able to supply the required infrastructure, but in rural areas we understand that that is not the case and therefore we are absolutely cognisant of the point he made.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, some years ago, I bought a house in a remote rural part of the country. It had no supply of electricity, nor of water. I knew that when I bought it; that was the advantage of it, it was in a rural area. We cannot just say that wherever you live you get every one of the facilities as though you were living in an urban area.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

Where I live, in a reasonably rural area, water was not laid on to houses until relatively recently. I think most people today think that running water in your home is a requirement. I take my noble friend’s point. He may not want superfast, let alone ultrafast broadband, but more and more people do, and it is important for the economy. More people need it, so, gradually—as we said, by 2033—it will be available. Of course, he does not have to use it or sign up for it and therefore will not have to pay for it.