Adrian Sanders
Main Page: Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat - Torbay)Broadband (North of England)
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Andrew Jones
I thank the hon. Lady for her warm comments, but I do not think the Government are saying that it is acceptable. I think they are saying, “We know this matters and we are trying to roll it out.” The points I was making were a bit on the more positive side than she is suggesting. The problems did not just start in 2010; this has been a gradual growth of the digital economy and the opportunities it presents. The point I am trying to make is that we need to grab it. The Government have done well to grab it and we just need more of it.
Just as a further point—
Helen Goodman
I have two criticisms: one is of the way in which broadband has been rolled out; the other is of the behaviour of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, because they are now demanding that people deal with them solely online. That is a new development under this Government. The Government are encouraging them—in fact, instructing them—to deal solely with the citizen online. In the first-tier tribunal, for example, the tribunal judge ruled that the requirement to submit VAT returns online and the failure to take into account a person’s ability to comply on grounds of computer literacy, age, or the remoteness of location was a breach of the European convention on human rights. We need to see a change in the Government’s attitude on that.
There is an overall problem and it is twofold. The Government prioritised speed over access. When we left office, we had laid out a plan for securing universal broadband roll-out by 2012. The Government abandoned it and set out twin objectives in 2011. They were the provision of a superfast broadband network to 90% of the population by 2015 and the ability of every household to receive at least 2 megabytes download speed by 2015. Both those targets will be missed by the Government and the target is now to reach 95% of the population by 2017.
What the Government did was invest a large amount of money, for example, in the super-connected cities programme, instead of prioritising the roll-out to the rural areas. The super-connected cities programme produced a legal challenge. What the Government did was highly controversial.
Eric Ollerenshaw
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. He is right to say “broadly speaking”, because the map does not tell me which villages are in or out. I said that there was some confusion right at the beginning, on both sides, about Dolphinholme’s position in the original agreements, but it has only 181 inhabitants. It is right in the hills between the villages that B4RN is covering.
Does the Minister agree that it seems remarkably odd that a company as large as BT should suddenly move into that village in the hills, when it is saying that other villages—Glasson Dock, for example—and other parts of the Lancaster urban area are still waiting for connectivity? Why should BT suddenly concentrate on that particular area? That is what questions are being asked about. I will repeat myself: I would prefer a much more detailed map.