Touring Musicians: EU Visas and Permits

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ms Harman]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about that. Plans are being made, and if the Government do not move quickly some organisations will become unviable. Some musicians at the top of their career will feel their best option is to relocate to Europe, and we do not want them to have to do that. Many of the next generation of musicians will never have the opportunity to get into the profession, and to develop their careers, without the financial and artistically important benefits of working in Europe. Whether it is established artists or those just starting out, big organisations or freelancers, our music sector needs the cultural creativity that they get from working in Europe. We do not want to become a musical Galápagos with our musicians locked out of the cultural partnership that is so important for creative development.

I hope the Minister will recognise the weight of opinion, which includes Sir Elton John, Sir Simon Rattle, Howard Goodall, Sting, Judith Weir, Nicola Benedetti, Ed Sheeran, the Sex Pistols, Roger Daltrey, Bob Geldof, Brian May and many more. I pay tribute to the work done by the organisations demanding Government action: the Musicians’ Union, UK Music, the Association of British Orchestras, BECTU, the Incorporated Society of Musicians and Carry on Touring, to name just a few. They all call for a concerted response from the Government to support the sector while matters are being sorted out.

The Prime Minister has said that there is a problem and he promised to fix it. I have talked to the new Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. She knows about this and I know she wants to sort it. We are genuinely not looking for a political row. We only want a solution, but we need absolute clarity and honesty from the Government. There is no point in telling the sector that the problem is solved if it clearly is not. There is no point in the Government just issuing more guidance. Those involved in the music sector do not need to be told what the problem is. They know only too well and they need the Government to sort it.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Like others, I congratulate the right hon. and learned Lady on securing this debate. I agree with everything that she has said, but there is an aspect that she has not touched on—the festivals around the country. In Orkney we have the world-famous St Magnus festival in June, which was founded by the late Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. In Shetland, we have the Shetland folk festival. Those are community-enterprises, albeit highly professional ones. The administrative burden for them from having to deal with visas of the sort that the right hon. and learned Lady has already pointed out will be phenomenal. That cultural growth would be an enormous loss for our communities.

[Ms Harman]

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s point. We have to think of the impact of those coming into this country: we need them to be part of our music sector here.

I welcome the Minister to her place and I wish her well in her work. If she wants any help to get this sorted, we are all here to help and do whatever we can to back her up on this. I look forward to hearing from her this afternoon that she acknowledges the scale and nature of the problem, and that she will deliver on the Prime Minister’s promise. I know she will have to work with many other Departments. No pressure, but we are looking to her to deliver. We want to hear from her what progress she has already made, and what further progress she anticipates the Government will make in respect of which countries and by when.

Tackling the Digital Divide

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ali. I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing this time for what is, for my constituents, an important debate.

We have had an interesting contrast in two different definitions of what constitutes the digital divide. They are both very legitimate cases but, with absolutely no disrespect to the right hon. Member for East Ham and in no way wishing to belittle the very important issues he identified, I would love to have a lot of those issues in my constituency. The problems of access to software and so on are only really problems if we have the necessary hardware. Unfortunately, I am afraid that the experience of my constituency is rather closer to that of the hon. Member for North Devon and her constituents than to the—apparently very well-represented—east end of London.

To explain the scale of what we are talking about, in Orkney we have 65.93% superfast coverage—that is 30 megabits—and 1.48% full fibre. In Shetland, the comparable figures are 75.26% and 1.5%, and for Scotland as a whole they are 94.8% and 28.01%. When we talk about digital divides, I do not think there is a better illustration of the nature and extent of that divide than in these figures for the Northern Isles.

I do not think my constituents have ever been unreasonable on this. We always knew that there would be issues, given our geography, but it has now got to the point where it was revealed today, in The Press and Journal, that the Scottish Government’s Reaching 100% target is being put back to the end of 2026 and into 2027 for completion. The target was set in 2017, and it was originally to be completed by 2021. That allows us—or would allow us, were it ever to be completed—to catch up and to get what other people already have. That means that it will have been a full 10 years before we get that level of connectivity.

I will say two things about this news. First, I do not think that it demonstrates a great deal of respect for the communities I represent, or those around the highlands and islands, for this to come into the public domain because a newspaper has put in a freedom of information request to get that data. The reason for the delay should be something that is open and transparently disclosed by Government Ministers, but when asked by The Press and Journal, a Scottish Government spokesperson refused to comment. We do not even know why we are running up against this extension to an already over-extended deadline.

However, I must also say—this touches on something that the right hon. Member for East Ham said—that our experience regarding the USO has been less than fruitful. For a connection under the USO, my constituents are quoted exactly the sort of figures that the right hon. Member spoke of: tens of thousands of pounds. There are ways in which properties can pool together and share that burden, but when we spoke about the creation of a “universal service”, I do not think anybody imagined that it would be open only to people with tens of thousands of pounds for something that people in urban conurbations take for granted.

My frustration is that in Scotland, we have two schemes running: the universal service obligation and the Reaching 100% scheme. Nobody knows whether they should take the bird in the hand that is the universal service, which would guarantee them 10 megabits, or wait for the bird in the bush that Reaching 100% may be, whenever we reach the Reaching 100% target, which would give 30 megabits. To be quite honest, I do not really care which route people take.

We have two Governments in Scotland both spending taxpayers’ money, and the two schemes surely could be made to work better than this. There surely is no reason why they should be set up effectively in competition. Surely, for the benefit of the people who are paying the taxes and requiring the service, it ought to be possible to do something with one scheme that would actually deliver. At the end of the day, I do not care which flag is on the box that eventually arrives; all we care about is that we have meaningful connectivity.

In July of this year, we had encouraging news about the shared rural network and were pleased to see progress, but it has all been very quiet since then. The shared rural network and the availability of mobile phone connectivity are major frustrations of constituents in the communities that I represent, and it is something on which we would like to see faster progress. We were pleased to see the progress. However, when things are going well, Governments are always very quick to have announcements, press conferences and photo opportunities; when things go quiet, being the nasty, cynical, suspicious person I am, I am inclined to wonder whether there might be problems somewhere. An update from the Minister on the shared rural network would be most welcome.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve for the first time under your chairmanship, Ms Ali. I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing this important debate. The right hon. Member for East Ham made an extremely well-informed and helpful contribution. As was mentioned by the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey), someone does not have to be in an outlying constituency, such as North Devon or the constituency of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael)—the most outlying in the United Kingdom—to realise that there are problems. The digital divide is UK-wide.

The hon. Member for North Devon said that it is really important that people are online. I think we have all come to that consensus here. Several Members mentioned education, work opportunities and actually being able to access Government services, all of which is important. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) pointed out that the two Governments in Scotland are, it would be fair to say, doing their utmost to make sure that people across their governing areas are covered. However, there are difficulties with geography and, as the hon. Member for West Bromwich West said, processes.

I want to update the Minister on what the Scottish Government have been trying to do. They are trying to eradicate digital exclusion as best they can. They have made huge moves to get 88% of Scotland online, but serious discrepancies remain. Access sits at only 82% in the most deprived areas and 96% in the least deprived. Access is at 66% for over-60s, whereas it is at 99% for 16 to 24-year-olds, so there is work to be done, and that has been recognised. Across the UK, superfast broadband availability averages 86% in rural areas and 97.2% in urban areas. In Scotland, it averages 73% and 97.5% respectively. Again, there is work to be done.

The picture for gigabit broadband is more positive in Scotland, with 45.4% of households having such speeds compared with 37.5% in England, 71% in Northern Ireland and 29% in Wales. However, the rural-urban divide persists for gigabit broadband in Scotland, too. That needs to be addressed. The Scottish Government and Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—COSLA —have a joint digital inclusion strategy to try to help tackle the digital exclusion in Scotland. They are investing in 4G notspots to ensure greater coverage and investing £463 million in the Digital Scotland superfast broadband programme, which has extended fibre broadband access to more than 950,000 homes and businesses across Scotland.

The Scottish Government and COSLA are also promoting the digital participation charter, which has been signed by 673 organisations. That is important. Each organisation has committed to supporting their employees and people across Scotland to develop the essential digital skills needed to do their jobs, live their lives and use digital services with confidence. Other Members referred to the fact that we need to educate people on how to use digital services. It is as important as rolling out broadband and tackle the other fibre optic issues we have been talking about.

The digital divide may have existed before the pandemic, but it has been exacerbated by it. That is why the Scottish Government have invested in several digital inclusion programmes throughout the pandemic. So far they have invested £25 million for digital inclusion among school-ages children. More than 72,000 devices and over 14,000 connectivity packages have been distributed to learners across Scotland via this funding. That goes over and above the Connecting Scotland programme, which the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland mentioned. He has pulled something out of a hat, because I have not read The Press and Journal, but I absolutely get his point. The Scottish Government were aiming to have everything done by the end of the year.

[Mr Carmichael]

I did not honestly expect that the hon. Lady would know the details. I say to her colleagues, perhaps through herself, that the frustration that we have felt in our communities at the moment is from not knowing. It comes from not being told in the first instance and then not being given the explanation. There may well be a reasonable explanation, but not knowing it just leaves us wondering.

[Marion Fellows]

I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention. I assure him that I will try to find out, if I can. I make no guarantees or promises, but I will try. I do not think I can say any fairer than that.

Local authorities in Scotland also bear the responsibility for laptop and digital device provision to students, which is hugely important. In many cases, it is easier to do such things in Scotland through the 32 local authorities and COSLA, because it is more joined up. There has been investment in the Connecting Scotland programme, which helps to provide low-income households with digital devices and support, and the Scottish Government have now increased funding to more than £48 million.

In less than a year, Connecting Scotland has reached 9,000 people who are at clinically high risk, or extremely high risk, from covid-19. That was really important, because of the sense of isolation. As the Scottish National party’s disability spokesperson here at Westminster, I can vouch for the importance of helping deprived people who also suffer from extreme loneliness and physical disabilities to feel part of the community, even if that is done digitally. The Scottish Government are committed to tackling the digital divide in Scotland, and they will continue to do so.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland referred to the R100 contracts. It is now largely a full-fibre programme, delivering full-fibre connections on the ground while the UK Government are still planning to do so. Will the Minister tell us how far they are getting along? If I talk about what is being done in Scotland, it is not because I think that everything is better in Scotland—though often it is—but because it is useful for other parts of the UK to learn from what we are doing and not to have to start reinventing wheels. The R100 contract delivery will extend beyond the end of 2021. The Scottish broadband voucher scheme will ensure that the 100% superfast commitment is met. The main voucher offers up £5,000 to obtain a superfast broadband connection, and the £400 interim voucher is available to those for whom a R100 contract bill will be delivered after 2021. Again, this work is ongoing.

The SNP is going far beyond the commitment to deliver access to superfast broadband, and a significant proportion of connections are being delivered as full fibre. Such technology will future-proof our connectivity, but Scotland’s topography means that the build is complex and will take time. We all recognise the different geographies and topographies across the UK, but if we are to move forward, it is really important that we get broadband out to everyone as soon as we can.

Despite broadband investment remaining fully reserved to the UK Government, which is where we get the two-Government approach, the SNP Scottish Government have taken by making substantial investments in Scotland’s digital infrastructure in order to improve coverage. The Scottish Government are committed to tackling the digital divide and will continue to do so. Will the UK Government do more to match Scotland’s digital ambitions and deliver key funding to tackle the digital divide? Will the Minister confirm that Scotland will receive its fair share of the £5 billion earmarked by the UK Government for investment in gigabit-capable infrastructure in order to carry out these ambitions? The SNP Scottish Government have chosen to focus on delivering technology that will underpin economic growth and connectivity for decades to come.

I have quoted several figures, but it is really important to think of the people behind the digital divide—the people who suffer because of it and who cannot be as ambitious as some of us are. It sometimes seems like a first-world problem when we complain about things such as not being able to get superfast broadband, but it is very difficult when someone is disabled and housebound and does not have the cash to buy digital equipment. If the UK Government are serious about levelling up, they must look at this issue in full, and commit to ensuring that those who have suffered throughout, before and after the pandemic have access to proper, good-quality broadband and digital equipment to help them grow and prosper.

Online Harms Consultation

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

My hon. Friend is entirely correct to raise that point. Essentially, the criteria will be if the purpose of the website is not in any way related to user-generated content, but that is just a small by-product. I used the example—it might be seen as slightly frivolous, but it is a way to illustrate it—of the online cheese retailer. Many small businesses, which are essentially retail or other activities, may allow reviews and so on. It is perfectly reasonable that we should say from the start that they are not subject to it. In practice, they would not be anyway because they will not fall within the codes of conduct. It is my experience with regulation that the more we can exclude from the beginning, the better, because it removes that worry, which frequently comes from small businesses that have one or two people, not massive compliance departments that can deal with it.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD) [V]]

May I welcome the return of pre-legislative scrutiny? If ever there were an instance that required it, this is certainly it. Can I press the Secretary of State on the duty of care that he has outlined in relation to private messaging? From what he said a few minutes ago to the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), he seems to expect companies such as Facebook to police content and behaviour on apps such as WhatsApp. I do not see how they can do that without undermining the idea of end-to-end encryption, which is very important for people’s privacy and security. How will he do that in practice without relying on technology that has not yet been invented?

[Oliver Dowden]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point about privacy. Clearly, if it was up to individuals within those companies to identify content on private channels, that would not be acceptable—that would be a clear breach of privacy. That is why we will rely on technology and AI and so on to identify trends that can be used to spot that kind of thing. I urge him to go along to some of these tech companies and see the advances that they are making, because it is very instructive.

As I said to the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), end-to-end encryption takes a whole other level of challenge. The Home Secretary and I are actively engaging with Facebook, for example, to discourage it from using end-to-end encryption unless it can put appropriate protections in place. Those conversations are ongoing.

Digital Infrastructure, Connectivity and Accessibility

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) because the situation that he describes in his constituency is one that is all too painfully familiar for me in mine. It is almost a cliché to say that the pandemic has opened our eyes to what is possible with good-quality connectivity. From the northern isles’ perspective, we see it rather differently. The pandemic has shown us what is possible for other people because so many people in my constituency are left bumping along on speeds that are less than 2 megabits per second.

I joined the 21st century just a couple of weeks ago, when I bought myself an iPhone 12, which has 5G capability. I speed tested it in Parliament yard as I was coming up for the debate today. I got a speed test of 227 megabits per second download and 39 megabits per second upload. So the Minister can surely see: we have spoken for years about a digital divide, but that divide is now a chasm.

For Orkney and Shetland, the idea that internet speeds and access to the internet should be more than 200 times greater in SW1 than in KW15, 16 and 17, and ZE1, 2 and 3—[Interruption.] I can still do it sometimes. That illustrates the nature of the problem we face. It speaks more eloquently than anything else I can think of about the failure of how we have gone about this as a country. Simply leaving it to the private sector, which will inevitably build from the big conurbations and go outwards, instead of building from the edge and coming inwards, is what has produced the situation today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) spoke a few minutes ago. He asked in a tone of frustration and exasperation that I can well understand, “Who is responsible for this?” because we have this constantly in Scotland: on the one hand, there is the provision made by the Scottish Government; and, on the other, we have schemes funded by the UK Government. The difficulty is that neither of them gives us what we need.

Not that long ago, this House legislated for a universal service in broadband. Constituents of mine get quotes from BT for that and they hear of £50,000, £60,0000 or £70,000 for a broadband connection to get them to 10 megabits per second. If that is only available to people who have a spare £50,000, £60,0000 or £70,000 lying around the house, by definition it is hardly a universal service. However, my constituents are also frustrated at the lack of certainty and community consultation we see from the R100 scheme of the Scottish Government. We still do not know what they are going to deliver and when we are going to get it. All the signs are that the problems that we have had—a service to be deployed in the isles that is designed in Edinburgh; what people in Edinburgh think we can get and we need—are going to be there again. So the most remote and the most economically fragile communities in my constituency still risk being left behind. It should not be rocket science. Surely, with a bit of will, the Governments could speak to each other and do better than this.

Tourism: Covid-19

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I apologise for not having been here for most of the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker; I have been trying to multi-task today and have been failing miserably.

I wish to pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) about the reduced VAT rate, as I, along with many others, have been campaigning for that for many years. It is a welcome move, but, as he said, it requires a bit more consideration, with a view to a more open-minded approach from the Treasury to see it extended. I believe it is due to run until January or February of next year, but we are talking about people who have come out of six months of winter into spring of this year, when they were earning very little, and then been closed down for most of what would be their economically productive season. Accordingly, they simply have not opened up and they will be going back into their quiet season again, with a view to going back into their full productive effort around Easter next year, by which time the benefit of a reduced VAT rate is not going to be there for them.

I also say to Treasury Ministers, through the Minister on the Front Bench, that one of their objections to a reduced VAT rate for the visitor economy over the years has always been that they do not think it would have the effect on the tax take that is claimed for it. After a significant period at the reduced rate, if it is extended beyond that which we have at the moment, we will have reliable data that should settle that question once and for all. The case for a continuation of the VAT reduction period is strong.

As the local economy in the Northern Isles was opening up over the summer months, I was able to go out, and as the visitor economy is so important for us, I took time to talk to hoteliers. The thing that came across to me loud and clear was their frustration at having no control over so many of the things they need to rebuild their businesses and get money back into our community.

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)]

As an MP for an island constituency, like me, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the financial packages provided by this Government are particularly important for island and coastal communities?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Carmichael]

They are absolutely important for island and coastal communities, because there are so many different ways in which we do not control our own destiny. I talked to hoteliers at the north end of Shetland, one of whom was particularly frustrated because they had had so many group bookings cancelled—NorthLink Ferries had cancelled the bookings from the tour companies themselves. That Government-provided service should be running for the benefit of the community, but, for reasons that were perhaps understandable but which came without the necessary consultation, these people had been left without the proper control. As we begin to rebuild the visitor economy, in the Northern Isles and elsewhere, the one plea I make to Government in London and in Edinburgh is that the communities that rely on the visitor economy should be given the power to do that for themselves. They are the people who know best what they need, and they need to be listened to. Give them the tools to rebuild our tourism industry and they will do the job for us.

Huawei and 5G

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

It is either absurd or I will have to review my purchase from John Lewis. My socks might even be bugged! My right hon. Friend is exactly right. I want to make this point, which often goes missing in this debate. Huawei is also seen as a national security threat. It continues to deal extensively with Iran without full public knowledge of how; it built a mobile network for North Korea; and it is providing security surveillance and censoring systems to authoritarian regimes, not least the Chinese Government.

It has long been documented that Huawei has a long and intimate history with the Chinese security services, and there are issues around the security systems that have been provided for them, which are now being used, I think, to supress the Uyghur people. I have real concerns about that.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I want to bring to the right hon. Gentleman’s attention a recently published report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, “Uyghurs for sale”, which reports a horrific programme of exporting Uyghurs from Xinjiang to other parts of China. According to the report, Huawei is one of the companies that has benefited as a consequence.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

That is shocking. If true, it is an absolute indictment. The British Government and other western Governments must speak up more about this and say that what is going on there is simply intolerable. If that were any other Government, it would be shocking. It is time that we call it what it is.

If all that is not enough to make one concerned—it should be—I hope that the UK Government, my Government, have noticed the following:

“A superseding indictment was returned yesterday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, charging Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (Huawei), the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, and two U.S. subsidiaries with conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act”.

That is a very serious charge, which was made a matter of weeks ago, yet the UK Government announced that although they recognise Huawei as an untrusted provider, we would not stop network providers using Huawei equipment in the new 5G system. Instead of banning them, as our allies have done, we would place limits on the locations and the extent to which Huawei products may be deployed in our 5G network, to reduce Huawei’s involvement over time to the figure of 35%.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Warman]

I will come on to what we will do to try to promote market diversification in a moment. Suffice it to say, we do not and will never put anything other than national security at the very top of our agenda on this issue.

[Mr Carmichael]

I want to clarify a very simple point. The moving to 0% of high-risk vendors seems good common sense to me. Is the Minister telling the Chamber that Huawei is classified by this Government as a high-risk vendor?

[Matt Warman]

Yes. Huawei and ZTE are both high-risk vendors, as we have said previously.

TV Licences for Over-75s

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

I want to make a bit of progress, because I know that many hon. Members want to speak in the debate.

The BBC’s brilliant public service and the role that it plays for older people would not be possible without the licence fee. Last year, the BBC received more than £3.8 billion in licence fee income, and it is that income that underpins the BBC’s crucial role in making sure that everyone in the UK can access the content that educates, informs and entertains. The Government recognised the importance of the licence fee when we agreed the licence fee funding settlement with the BBC in 2015. We agreed a five-year licence fee funding settlement, which provided for the first time financial certainty and a sustainable income for the BBC and we committed to maintaining the current licence fee funding model for the duration of this charter period until 2027. We unfroze the licence fee for the first time since 2010 by guaranteeing that, each year, it will rise in line with inflation.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Surely the point is this: we cannot provide financial certainty for the BBC at the expense of the over-75s. Whether or not it was right to give power to the BBC in the Digital Economy Act is not the issue. We have to look at this on the basis of the outcomes, not the processes. Will the Minister not accept that, right now, the outcomes for the over-75s look pretty grim?

[Margot James]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am sure that the BBC will listen to those comments, with which I have considerable sympathy. This was part of a fair deal for the BBC. I have already quoted the director-general of the BBC, but he did also say at the time that it was a strong deal for the BBC and that it provided financial stability—that is important for all viewers, whatever their age—and Parliament agreed, which we have already discussed.

As the House will recognise, the Government have been clear about their expectations on this matter. The Government guaranteed the over-75 concession at least until 2020. We agreed with the BBC, and it was approved by this House, that the future of the concession was the BBC’s decision, and the BBC is rightly operationally independent of the Government. Therefore, this matter is for the BBC. Given the importance of the issue, we have made our expectations clear. Let me just point out that the BBC has undergone a significant and extensive consultation, as it was required to do by law through the Digital Economy Act. The consultation closed in February of this year. It set out a number of options for the future of the concession and it is carefully evaluating the many, many inputs as a result of that consultation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need to catch up on fibre. The Government have exciting plans and funding to accelerate fibre roll-out, with a £200 million programme, which was announced in the last Budget, starting this April and a further £300 million before 2022. I will look at the north Wales proposal with great interest.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I thank the Minister most warmly and sincerely for her announcement yesterday of £1.91 million to get superfast broadband into Unst and Yell in Shetland. That money truly has the potential to be transformative for those communities. If she would like to come and see that for herself, she would be very welcome. If she does so, she will also be able to see the remaining communities in Shetland and Orkney where such investment could make a massive difference.

[Margot James]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his positive input, and I am planning to visit Scotland in April. I draw his attention to the excellent 5G testbed pilots that we are running in rural areas in his part of Scotland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport was asked—

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

1. What steps the Government are taking to improve mobile phone coverage in all parts of the UK.

[The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Jeremy Wright)]

The Government are committed to ensuring that there is high-quality mobile coverage where people live, work and travel. We welcome the opportunity that Ofcom’s forthcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction offers to extend coverage across all parts of the UK, and we continue to work across Government with Ofcom and the mobile network operators to support investment and deliver coverage to 95% of the UK’s land mass by 2022.

[Mr Carmichael]

That all sounds very well, but it would appear that we still have some way to go. Recent research from Which? and OpenSignal showed that 4G phone users in Scotland can get a 4G signal only 50.4% of the time on average, compared with 69.7% in London. In Wales, that figure is as low as 35%. What are the Government doing about that?

[Jeremy Wright]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that there is considerably more progress to be made—I do not need to explain to him the particular geographical difficulties in Scotland—but it is worth recognising that considerable progress has been made. He quoted those figures, but there are slightly different figures when one looks at 4G coverage from at least one mobile network operator. The increase from last year to this year is considerable. In June 2017, about 50% of Scotland was covered by one mobile operator at 4G level; that figure was up to 75% in May 2018. I agree with him entirely that there is more work to do, and we intend to do it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

I certainly will look at the issues my hon. Friend raises. I am very aware of these notspots. We are working constantly with Broadband UK and mobile operators to close them in the shortest possible time.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Ofcom’s figures show that 4G rollout across the whole of the UK is now at 52%, up from 38%. In Scotland, however, that figure is only 29%, up from 15%. When can we expect Scotland’s coverage to catch up with that in the rest of the country?

[Margot James]

If we take coverage from at least one provider, we see that 50% of Scotland now has mobile coverage. I accept that that is obviously not enough, but that does provide coverage for indoor voice for at least 90% of Scottish premises. However, we still have a great deal more to do.