Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Selous and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

EE is already deploying 4G services in 11 cities, and will be doing so in five more before the end of the year. We expect further 4G services to become available by mid-summer. It will of course be for the operators to decide when they will become available in Central Bedfordshire.

[Andrew Selous]

My constituency is only 34 miles north of the House of Commons, yet large parts of it, such as the village of Studham, have almost no mobile phone coverage. Many complaints have been raised with me about that, particularly by people running businesses and working from home. Will 4G help them?

[Mr Vaizey]

4G should be helpful to them in the next few years, but I would also say that we take the issue of partial not spots, where there is not universal coverage, very seriously. That is one reason we are looking at making it easier to deploy mobile phone masts and increase mobile phone coverage, particularly in areas such as the one described by my hon. Friend.