Rural Broadband (North Yorkshire)

Anne Main Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

I am informed by the Clerk that because the last debate ended early, an extra nine minutes of this sitting is allowed, should people wish to have it.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

It is a proud pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mrs Main. I am delighted to have been given this opportunity to debate rural broadband in north Yorkshire.

Before speaking specifically about York and north Yorkshire—the most beautiful area within God’s own county—may I touch briefly on the wider broadband roll-out? I am pleased that, as part of their long-term economic plan, the Government have recognised that the future of our economy rests on the ability of our infrastructure not only to cope with the demands placed on it, but to exceed those demands and facilitate new opportunities for growth. This is no less true of superfast broadband than it is of our rail, road and air infrastructure.

The Government’s investment in superfast broadband is, to my mind, one of their greatest and most important achievements in this Parliament, yet sometimes it does not get the plaudits that it deserves. It has by no means been an easy task. It has required huge investment from the Government, totalling roughly £1.6 billion, and some hard work from all those involved in organising the roll-out, including the people physically on the ground, upgrading the telephone cabinets with the fibre.

However, all the hard work and commitment has been worth it. The recent findings from the UK broadband impact study reveal that for every £1 the Government invest in broadband, the UK economy will benefit by £20. That represents fantastic value for money in the short term. In the short term, the network construction will add around £1.5 billion to the economy, creating 11,000 jobs this year alone. In the longer term, it will increase annual gross value added by £6.3 billion. Its benefits will be spread across the country, with approximately 89% of that in areas outside London and the south-east, such as York and north Yorkshire. That vindicates the Government’s commitment to investing so much in this programme and shows that all the hard work that is being put in on a local level is delivering real results.

The roll-out has not been without its problems and it has faced some public criticism for the degree to which one company has achieved a monopoly over the roll-out contracts. There is also some concern about the apparent shortcomings in the contracts, with BT being obliged only to upgrade telephone cabinets with their fibre-to-the-cabinet approach. Some of my constituents have expressed concern that, because they receive their telephone lines from an upgraded cabinet, they are being counted by BT as though they were part of the 90%, despite being too far away from the cabinet to receive the upgraded superfast internet speeds.

However, I have received assurances from the chief executive of BT Openreach that that is not the case, and that only those who receive superfast speeds are counted. Superfast North Yorkshire has subsequently clarified that, although there may be issues about how coverage is measured in other parts of the country, the north Yorkshire contract only counts those who are capable of receiving superfast speeds.

Locally, the roll-out so far has been a roaring success. The project, which has been overseen by Superfast North Yorkshire, has been run well. When it first set out on its mission, it had a total of 670 cabinets to be upgraded—I think the technical term is “deployed”—but, to date, 350 cabinets have been upgraded, which marks 52% of the total. However, it is expected that this figure will rise to 370 next week, ensuring that the project is well over halfway to completion.

In north Yorkshire, roughly one cabinet is updated per working day. As a result, phase 1 of the roll-out is expected to be completed by October 2014, well ahead of the national target, which originally intended to provide only 90% of all households with speeds of up to 25 megabits per second by the end of 2015. That target now appears to have been pushed back, and phase 1 might not be achieved nationally until the end of 2016. Will the Minister clarify that? What might that do to the expected release of phase 2 funding?

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

rose—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. The debate will finish at 5.9 pm. Does the hon. Gentleman have the permission of the Minister and of the Member who secured the debate to make a brief speech?

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

indicated assent.

[Julian Sturdy]

indicated assent.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

I call Nigel Adams.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Adams]

rose—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

I call Julian Sturdy. I am sorry, I mean Nigel Adams.

[Nigel Adams]

I aspire to be like my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy).

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

I am sorry; I was not wearing my glasses.

[Nigel Adams]

Does the Minister have any experience of hard-to-reach areas in other parts of the country implementing wi-fi solutions? Does he have any knowledge of the take-up, or experience of how well such solutions work? In one of my villages, Ulleskelf, I helped to launch a wi-fi service more than a year ago. My understanding is that the take-up has been low—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister needs the remaining 40 seconds to respond.

[Mr Vaizey]

There are individual solutions and it is important that we remain open to them. I receive e-mails from individual providers which claim that they can provide commercial solutions for the last 5%. It is important that we hear from all potential providers, which is why we have set aside that money to stress-test solutions before making that final allocation to get us to 100% superfast broadband.

Question put and agreed to.