Phone and Broadband Coverage (Herefordshire)

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Anne Main

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

The Minister has eight minutes left. I think he was taking an intervention.

[Mr Vaizey]

Yes, I will take that intervention again now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his generosity, even with his beard. He is being kind in responding to the comments from colleagues, but he has not responded to one particular point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire, which concerned BT’s performance as a monopoly provider. My parents moved house recently, well before Christmas. They moved into a mobile phone not spot in Begbroke in my constituency, and applied for wi-fi. It was only put in place on Monday. That is an unacceptable level of service, and it is common. How will the Minister improve the level of service from BT?

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister has two minutes left.

[Mr Vaizey]

I am aware of some of the problems Openreach has. It is recruiting some 1,500 additional engineers. My glass is always half full, so I praise Openreach for the work it has done. I visited some Openreach engineers working in my constituency over the Christmas period, when they were busily wiring up 360 of my constituents in the village of Steventon.

To sum up, we have the superfast broadband programme. We also have the mobile infrastructure project, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire pointed out, there are 10 MIP sites in his constituency. It has been tough going, getting the MIP up and running, not least dealing with landlords. However, we are also upgrading the technology so that it can accommodate 3G and 4G as well. Of course, there is also the landmark deal that my hon. Friend referred to: we have negotiated with the mobile operators to provide 90% geographic coverage, which will get rid of two thirds of not spots. That was a deal done without the need for legislation and time-consuming consultation. Already, the mobile operators are committed to 98% coverage of premises, but 90% geographic coverage will make a significant difference to rural areas.

I must make it clear that, despite the rightly testing nature of some of the speeches of and questions put by my hon. Friends today, we are on the same side, in the sense that we absolutely recognise the needs of rural communities. That is why we started the superfast broadband programme, why we extended it to phase 2, why we are looking to extend it to phase 3, why we have put in place the MIP and why we have put together the deal with the mobile phone companies.

However, implementation is quite another matter. I absolutely hear the concerns of many of my hon. Friends about how, and the speed with which, these projects are being implemented. I assure them that the superfast broadband roll-out programme is now going very quickly indeed. The roll-out of 4G is the fastest anywhere in the western world, and we have put a rocket under the MIP as well.

I welcome this debate and the forthcoming Adjournment debate, and I look forward to my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire, who so ably secured this debate, having a debate in the main Chamber so that we can examine these issues in more detail. I apologise for the fractured nature of my speech. I wanted to take as many interventions as possible, but we have been interrupted by Commons business and the odd joke.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order.

European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Anne Main

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Vaizey]

I feel that I may have sparked another area of debate and discussion. I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Mrs Main]

I am not trying to be unhelpful, but is the Minister saying that this is a bone that we are giving to the EU in the hope that we might get a bigger bone back in the future?

[Mr Vaizey]

I do not know what my hon. Friend’s definition of unhelpful is. I am sure that voting for an amendment that the Government oppose is not unhelpful. I am simply saying that this is a very small programme that costs us between £1 million and £1.5 million a year, and that the vast majority of the programme supports things that we actively should support, such as commemoration of the holocaust, or other areas that, if one were to be pejorative, might be described as innocuous, such as twinning celebrations.

The serious point is that many eastern European member states will use the programme to support their campaign to remain free and democratic nations as part of a free and democratic Europe. Given that the measure has been supported by all the other member states, I think that we in this House should support it and send those eastern European states a signal that we support the journey that they have taken towards freedom and democracy.

Rural Broadband (North Yorkshire)

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Anne Main

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. The debate will finish at 5.9 pm. Does the hon. Gentleman have the permission of the Minister and of the Member who secured the debate to make a brief speech?

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

indicated assent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister needs the remaining 40 seconds to respond.

[Mr Vaizey]

There are individual solutions and it is important that we remain open to them. I receive e-mails from individual providers which claim that they can provide commercial solutions for the last 5%. It is important that we hear from all potential providers, which is why we have set aside that money to stress-test solutions before making that final allocation to get us to 100% superfast broadband.

Question put and agreed to.

UK Internet Search Engines

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Anne Main

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Is the Minister aware that a great many people with tremendous talent in my constituency have had to leave Northern Ireland to get jobs elsewhere? What steps does he intend to take to ensure that that ability and experience can be utilised to its full potential here in the United Kingdom? What does he intend to do to encourage and foster business?

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. This is a very short debate and I ask that interventions are kept brief.

[Mr Vaizey]

I am grateful to you, Mrs Main, and for the intervention.

What is the current position regarding search engines? It is absolutely true that the foremost popular internet search engines in this country are based in America. The top two have more than 90% of the market, and that situation is replicated pretty much across the globe, as evidenced by Google’s global market share of around 85%. On one level, the internet search engine market obviously operates in a free market environment, and in the UK there are no barriers to a consumer’s ability to switch to a preferred search engine or to stay loyal to the one of their choice. Many search engines, including the most popular, have local versions that search only UK websites.