Superfast Broadband

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman). He talked about rural issues not being the main issue, and I accept that. However, there is a double whammy for people on the periphery of a rural area. It is a great place to live, but businesses complain that it is not a great place to do business. I speak on behalf of businesses, including tourism, and on behalf of many others.

We are not a semi-detached area. I believe Ynys Môn is the heart of the British Isles. It is very close to Ireland and to England, and south of Scotland, so it is the centre of the British Isles. Business is in many ways London-centric, and Cardiff-centric in Wales, so we do feel left out.

I welcome the Government’s making progress, which has been mentioned, but I am afraid it is not sufficient in areas on the periphery of the United Kingdom.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned peripheral areas. The Faroe Islands, between Scotland and Iceland, are a peripheral area in Europe. Each and every house in the Faroe Islands has wired broadband: that is a choice their Government made and it has happened. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that if we made such choices, we too could achieve that. In the meantime, 4G surely has a huge part to play in the inevitable “not spots” continuing to exist in the UK, although not in the Faroe Islands.

[Albert Owen]

The hon. Gentleman makes the case well. The Faroe Islands is a great example. I have learnt something today. Where there is the political will, there is a way. In the 21st century, this should be a necessity for rural areas, not a luxury.

The Minister highlighted some good working practices in previous debates. The Welsh Assembly has a good working relationship with the UK Government and the European Union in delivering superfast broadband in Wales. That has been working well, to an extent.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) on securing this debate.

I will be brief, as the main themes have been well aired already. I want to raise specifically with the Minister the issue of two areas in my constituency that are being appallingly served by BT, Askham and Kirkby-in-Furness. I have been deluged by complaints from constituents who have just about managed to get internet access to email me in advance of the debate, because they knew I intended to speak today.

The situation in Askham concerns a particular cabinet. It is the sort of case that will be familiar to many hon. Members present—indeed, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness gave a good account of how BT seems to shift the goalposts. People in Askham were promised a cabinet. They were then given the excuse that the road around the cabinet site was eroded; if the Minister wants to come and look at the cabinet—I am sure that will be high up on his to-do list at the start of the new Parliament—he will see that that excuse is a nonsense. They were then given a second excuse, namely that there was no land on which the new cabinet could be sited that was not private. But anyone looking at the site would see that those excuses do not hold water. Hundreds of people in Askham are tearing their hair out.

The situation is similar in Kirkby. The service is going significantly backwards and BT has not given a date by which it will be fixed. I do not like having to name and shame a company for poor service, but I am afraid that is what we have to do in Parliament, given BT’s intransigence on this.

[Mr MacNeil]

Might it be a solution to have a specific fund for cabinets? Once the network is laid out, the problem will be getting cabinets that can be spurs off the network to local communities.

[John Woodcock]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting suggestion and one that the Minister may want to consider, but as far as I am concerned—and as far as my constituents are concerned—a promise was made by Government to deliver superfast broadband and another was made by BT to facilitate that, and we should hold both to account, whether or not a separate fund for cabinets is created.

I do not like having to raise this issue in Parliament, but we are going to keep banging on about this to BT until it fixes the issue. I hope the Minister will be able to give us some reassurance that the Government will intervene, if necessary, to sort the problem out.