Superfast Broadband: Rural Communities

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Carmichael]

I do not want to turn this into a whinge-fest about British Telecom, because that is just too easy. Our role in this debate is to look at a more strategic picture. The fact is that where there is provision, business and economic development follow. That is why it needs strategic, political and regulatory intervention. It is in all our interests that we maintain the widest possible spread of economic development. If the political will and regulatory effort is put into getting the roll-out, we will find that the economic opportunities follow.

The final illustration I have on the difference between rural and urban broadband is that I asked my staff to run broadband speed tests on their own machines. I asked my caseworker in Shetland to run the broadband speed checker first of all. On broadband.co.uk, she recorded a 0.3 megabits download speed. My researcher based in the House of Commons, who has an address in Surrey, did the same test and came up with 184.12 megabits per second. If that is not a digital divide, I really do not know what is.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Is it not right to note—as the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) did—that there can be premises in an urban area sitting cheek by jowl with others where there are enormous disparities? Does the right hon. Gentleman also recognise, and share my intense frustration, that millions of pounds of public money is sitting in bank accounts ready to hook up homes and premises, but all too often excessive caution, or the terror of being found in breach of state aid rules, prevents that money from being spent?

[Mr Carmichael]

I confess that of the many difficulties I have encountered in the years I have been dealing with this issue as a Member of Parliament, that is one I have not come across. However, what the hon. Gentleman describes would frustrate us all. The difficulty is that this problem is now beginning to undermine Government policy across the board. The Government as a whole have an interest in the Minister’s Department taking a lead in driving it out.

We are forever encouraging our farmers to diversify, saying that they should be setting up holiday accommodation and finding different ways to bring people into the countryside and add value to their product. Bluntly, however, that requires good connectivity—without that it will not happen.

I recently had contact with a postmistress in Shetland who tells me that her business as a postmistress is now being adversely affected by the intermittent service and extremely slow broadband speeds that she has to deal with. She says customers at the post office are being seriously affected by long waits because of the internet cutting out. As well as the difficulties that slow broadband speed causes her personally, it is considerably affecting her ability to provide a reliable post office service to that community in Shetland. There is a broad measure of political consensus in the House on the provision of post office services, but again, in the areas where it is most challenging it is being undermined by poor connectivity.

I will offer another couple of examples of how this problem affects my constituents. I recently had contact with one constituent in North Roe, right at the north of Shetland, who told me that in one week he had missed out on approximately £800 of potential grant funding for marine equipment as he was unable to open emails and download attachments. He says that he cannot submit fisheries or crofting forms online and that after 5.30 pm he need not even bother trying the internet, such is the quality of service he gets. The best example I got was also from a resident of North Roe, who told me that he tried to load the BT speed tester on his machine but did not have sufficient connectivity to load the page for the test.

The most interesting example came just this week in a piece of correspondence from a constituent in Westray. For the benefit of younger or newer Members in the House, that was a letter, which is what we used to get from constituents. He tells me:

“Access to broadband is not a luxury these days. We do banking and shopping and book flights to the Scottish mainland on the internet, and we communicate by email. Information that used to be on paper is on webpages now. I wrote to Ofcom about BT’s service and their reply referred me to web pages where I could learn about how to escalate my complaint and seek compensation”.

To load those pages, however, he would be required to go to the library in Kirkwall, which is a nine-hour round trip from his home in Pierowall in Westray.

The difficulty is that broadband roll-out, whether south of the border in England and Wales, or in Scotland through the Scottish Government—in partnership with Highlands and Islands Enterprise and BT in my area—is driven by targets. Indeed, the targets themselves may often be misleading. The next generation of roll-out, however, is not just going to be confined to broadband. For us the opportunities come from the availability of 4G and 5G—whenever that becomes a feature of our daily lives.

The Minister should perhaps be talking to his colleagues in the Home Office about the roll-out of the emergency services network. The contract has been given to EE, and that is going to give it an obvious advantage in having control of infrastructure across the whole country. The opportunity is there for much improved 4G coverage through EE. I give EE credit for the way in which it has engaged with communities, certainly in my constituency, but I hear increasing complaint about its willingness to engage with other mobile companies. It tells me that it does not know what features are going to be found in the design of this roll-out, and that it does not know what the mast heights and positions are going to be. This generational opportunity to improve the service is an opportunity for Government Departments to work together instead of in their own individual silos, to ensure that when that provision is ultimately rolled out it brings the maximum benefit to communities across the whole of the United Kingdom and companies across the whole of industry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady, and to follow the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray). I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on how he set out the concerns that many rural communities have across the United Kingdom. There are notspots in urban areas but, as somebody who lives in an urban area during my working week but who goes home to a periphery area, I notice the difference. I can use 4G very comfortably in my London flat but it is difficult to get it in rural areas.

[Alex Chalk]

It comes down to where people are. If they are in a bad area, whether in an urban or rural part of the country, the fact is that they do not have broadband. That is really what matters, not whether they are in a rural or an urban area. It affects people just the same.

[Albert Owen]

I am grateful for that intervention, but I was on the hon. Gentleman’s side when I said that there are notspots in urban areas. However, people there have alternatives. In rural and periphery areas, people rely totally on the roll-out scheme, which has reached 75% in my area. Like the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, I hold regular broadband hubs with communities across my island constituency. We are looking for solutions. We know the problems and issues. On the last occasion, I got the CEO of BT Openreach there to come with his team. He went with the engineers to check the difficult terrains and gave a commitment that there would be 95% coverage by the end of the year.

I have asked the Minister these questions a number of times. Given the Digital Economy Bill and the talk of a universal service obligation by 2020, who will deliver that extra 5%? We in the House of Commons need to join to work together for the 5% club—those not covered by the 95% roll-out, whether in Scotland, Cornwall and other parts of England, Northern Ireland or Wales.