Alun Cairns
Main Page: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)Department Debates - View all Alun Cairns's debates with the Home Office
(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Maria Miller
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that it is important that we reach out to women to help to increase participation even further. I have already cited the dramatic impact that hosting the Olympics and Paralympics has had in raising participation among women. Some sports have had a particularly successful track record in this area. Netball is one of the fastest growing women’s sports in the country, with participation having increased from 110,000 in 2005 to 158,000 last year. There are also examples in cycling and hockey. There is some good success, but we need to make sure that it is echoed in other areas too.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
3. What steps her Department is taking to improve broadband availability across the UK.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
We are investing some £680 million in urban and rural broadband. Taking into account local authority funding and private sector investment, more than £1 billion is going towards rolling out broadband.
Alun Cairns
I pay tribute to the Minister and the Government for prioritising the roll-out of broadband and for the significant sums of public money they have committed to it. Openreach has been successful in many of the contracts for extending broadband provision, but its modelling can be inaccurate. Some of my constituents have switched to fibre-to-the-cabinet, but they do not get speeds anywhere near the original commitments. Given those inaccurate models, is the Minister confident that some of the providers will not come back for further public money?
Mr Vaizey
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the assiduous work he does for his constituents. The average speed in Wales has gone up from some 7.5 megabits to 12 megabits. We are investing almost £57 million in rolling out broadband. I note what he says about speed. It is important that customers understand the speeds they will be getting.