Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Leader of the House

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts
Thursday 3rd March 2016

(8 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lord Vaizey of Didcot Portrait Mr Vaizey
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I am obviously not BT’s spokesman, but I hope BT is listening to what my hon. Friend has to say. He is a fantastic constituency MP. While I am very proud of the success of our roll-out programme, it is incumbent on BT to get its act together in terms of customer service and delivering on its promises.

Andrew Gwynne Portrait Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
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When the Minister boasts that we have some of the best broadband in Europe, who is he comparing us with? Is he aware of the House of Lords report showing that, for broadband speed, we are the 19th fastest in the world and the 12th fastest in Europe? Is that not really abysmal, and can we not do better?

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Portrait Mr Vaizey
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I do not think we could do better than we are already, actually. When I compare our broadband, I do so first with similar countries, such as Germany, France, Spain and Italy, all of whom we are beating. I would not look simply at speed. The hon. Gentleman takes a very narrow view, and does not look at prices. We have some of the lowest prices anywhere in the world. If we look at results—the fact that we lead the world in e-commerce, for example—they show that we are probably the world’s most advanced digital nation.