Broadband and Mobile Connectivity: Rural Areas
Debate between Anna Sabine and Steff Aquarone(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Anna Sabine
I thank my hon. Friend; there are a couple of interesting points there. The number of people affected may be relatively low, but they can be concentrated in one area, and it is quite often a rural area. On the question of one-time passcodes, I notice that many companies now offer alternatives, but the process seems to be quite slow.
We often talk about 5G-ready smartphones and fibre-optic broadband, but not all communities start from the same point. Urban areas have a considerable head start, and rural areas should not be punished for being harder to reach.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
The connectivity challenge is a huge issue in rural areas, especially for businesses. I recently visited a local tourism business in Bacton that relies on multiple copper landlines—a very vulnerable set-up, given the upcoming switch-off of the public switched telephone network. That business has had outages and engineers unintentionally disconnecting those landlines during maintenance work, and there is clearly no plan yet from Openreach for full-fibre in the village. Does my hon. Friend agree that such connectivity issues are holding back our rural economy, and that Openreach needs to help villages like Bacton to thrive?
Anna Sabine
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that those issues hold back rural economies. I am sure there are some interesting statistics on how much more growth—which is the Government’s agenda—we could get out of rural areas if they could connect at speed and at the times they needed to, without having to pay for often expensive satellite alternatives.
I welcome the Minister’s continued engagement on this issue, particularly his meeting with me and Somerset MPs to discuss the next steps in the roll-out of Project Gigabit, but I have three specific asks of him today. First, I would be grateful if he could confirm when we will receive the promised map identifying which households are included in the scheme. For any that are not included, what mechanism, obligation or incentive will exist to ensure that broadband providers still serve them?
Access to Dentistry: Somerset
Debate between Anna Sabine and Steff Aquarone(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Anna Sabine
Yes, there are certainly some horror stories about tooth removal. It does beg the question as to why NHS dental services in Somerset and the wider south-west have deteriorated in the last seven years. It seems to me that that is symptomatic of a lack of investment in the region, in terms of not only health and social care but withdrawn levelling-up funding and diverted rural England prosperity funding.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
My hon. Friend talks about the need for investment, and much of that will be in training new dentists. Does she therefore agree that it is baffling that a brand-new dental school at the University of East Anglia could be delayed by a full year because the Treasury refuses to release funding until a month after the deadline for UCAS course listings, and that another year’s delay is unacceptable for her constituents in Somerset and mine in North Norfolk?
Anna Sabine
That sounds very frustrating, particularly when, as we are seeing, there are so many crises in our dental services.
A constituent emailed me in February to say that four weeks previously her husband, who is in his late forties, had had a massive stroke. He collapsed into the sink in the kitchen and hit his face on the taps, breaking his teeth. He was discharged from hospital on 14 February, but cannot speak, is partially paralysed, needs continuing care, rehabilitation and adjustment, and is suffering dental pain. He is not registered with an NHS dentist and cannot afford private dental care, so they called 111 and, after four calls, drove to an appointment where the dentist was given just 30 minutes to treat only one tooth, which he had to remove. My constituents will have to call 111 again to get treatment for the next tooth. The husband needs dentures, is on soft foods and is still in pain. As that case shows, and as my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) pointed out, a failure to invest now in dentistry not only causes more pain for the individual, but gets more expensive and adds to pressure on other areas of the NHS in the longer term.
Financial Inclusion: Rural Areas
Debate between Anna Sabine and Steff Aquarone(5 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Anna Sabine
I am sorry to hear about what is happening in Ilminster; it sounds very frustrating. I will talk a little more about banking hubs and why they are a good thing that we need more of.
Prosper Frome, an organisation in my constituency that focuses on improving financial accessibility, had been advocating for a banking hub for over a year before it was announced by Link and Cash Access UK in September. That was a great relief to residents, who were about to see their final bank close, but Jean and Sam at Prosper Frome believe that the scope for banking hubs is too narrow, and have been lobbying hard to get a banking hub included as part of a much wider community project, enabling the hub to be multi-purpose. Making banking hubs more diverse widens their appeal and can make banking and financial inclusion the anchor of the kinds of community third spaces that many towns currently lack.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. She is right to say that banking hubs are about more than just access to cash. In the market towns of North Norfolk, our small businesses need access to banking services, which full banking hubs can provide. Does my hon. Friend understand why residents of North Walsham are so frustrated that the outcome of their recent cash review was simply to give them a cash and deposit machine located in the local fried chicken shop?
Anna Sabine
That sounds very frustrating; I am sorry to hear it. I will talk about the importance of face-to-face contact in banking.
Shutting branches and opening banking hubs is currently financially efficient for banks, but there is a real risk that those banking hubs could close after a few years once the banks stop saving money and see the hubs as a drain on their profits instead of a benefit. We need reassurance about the long-term provision of banking hubs and a requirement on banks to keep funding them on an ongoing basis.