Phone and Broadband Coverage (Herefordshire)

Anne Main Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

We can commence the debate, as the Minister and the Member whose debate it is are in position. If hon. Members intervene on Mr Norman, could they please be brief, as this is a half-hour debate?

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship or chairladyship, Mrs Main.

As colleagues will understand, this is a very serious issue that affects vast numbers of our constituents. This is only a short debate, but I see from the serried ranks of Conservative MPs and, sadly, the absence of Labour MPs that at least on one side of the House, this is a matter of great importance. I will be delighted to take interventions, as Mrs Main said, but let me make some progress first, and then I will invite colleagues to express their views.

I came to this subject because I was concerned about the combined effects of a bad mobile signal, a bad broadband signal and a phone line that is not working well. We see that in Herefordshire. Just a few weeks ago, I surveyed more than 1,100 people living and working in my constituency on the issue of mobile not spots and—

[Jesse Norman]

That is not quite what I was talking about. [Interruption.]

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Jesse Norman]

If my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) will let me continue, I will flag up when I am ready for the odd intervention or two.

The overwhelming majority of the constituents whom I surveyed thought that this was a serious concern and were in favour of action to tackle partial mobile phone not spots. We welcome the work that has been done on that by the Department so far. The situation is exactly the same for businesses. When Herefordshire’s sustainable food and tourism partnership surveyed its members, 97.8% responded to say that they had specific concerns and problems.

However, this is just part of a bigger picture. The Government need to look not merely at the effects of bad mobile and broadband coverage individually, but at their compounded effect. That is further magnified where there are insecure energy supplies, as in rural areas such as mine.

A mobile phone service is a lifeline for many people in rural areas, especially as BT telephone boxes are being withdrawn. Utilities, emergency services, telemedicine, delivery companies and tourists all require and rely on mobile and wi-fi coverage. However, it is common for my constituents to have download speeds of 400 kilobits per second and upload speeds of 120k—barely better than the old 56k connection—on aluminium phone lines, which prevent any kind of easy upgrade.

Welsh Water has told me that bad mobile coverage affects

“our speed of response and efficiency”

in attempting to serve tens of thousands of local people.

Kingstone surgery in my constituency has such a bad signal that if BT Openreach does not make urgent repairs, it will be unable to upgrade its software, potentially affecting 4,200 patients.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

It is a shame that literally no Opposition Members, let alone a Front-Bench spokesman, have attended the debate. I absolutely concur with the issues that my hon. Friend has raised. Constituents of mine have pointed out that they have been unable to contact the emergency services in the case of road traffic accidents and emergencies because they cannot get a mobile signal. There is a serious issue about allowing the emergency services to do their work.

What is to be done? I entirely reject, as colleagues will have heard, the argument that mobile phone coverage is a luxury, or that extending it should not be a concern of Government. I am delighted that that idea has been rightly rejected by Ministers for the nonsense that it is. Mobile coverage is absolutely essential to our constituents’ economic and social well-being. As a practical matter, they have no real economic power to secure parity of treatment. Someone who lives in a partial not spot has no place to go. They cannot secure the coverage that they need, and they have no alternative that might give them any economic leverage. On the contrary, the status quo raises serious questions about the effectiveness of competition in the market for mobile phone services in many parts of the country.

I absolutely welcome the initiative of the Secretary of State in this area and the recent agreement reached by Government and the mobile network operators. I wish that they would take that a step further and press for wider roaming rights for our constituents. Areas such as Herefordshire with multiple communications problems should be prioritised for improved coverage in a manner that follows local needs, not industry lobbying.

I will seek a full debate on the Floor of the House of Commons on those issues. I will encourage all my colleagues who are present today, and the dozens of others who have expressed an interest in the matter, to come along and take part in that debate. I want to cover three or four specific issues in that debate: first, a full understanding by Government of the nature of the problem, namely the combined effects of poor mobile, broadband and voice coverage; secondly, the specific performance of BT Openreach as a monopoly supplier of network infrastructure, and its manifest inadequacies; thirdly, recognition by Government that failure of phone or electricity is more serious where mobile coverage is patchy, so BT Openreach and the utility companies should prioritise repairs to such areas; and, finally, I suggest that Ofcom needs to look at service contracts. Mobile customers who sign such contracts and find that their connection is much worse than expected should be able to leave them early and on non-punitive terms. [Interruption.] On that basis, and with a welcome to Labour colleagues who have just entered the Chamber, I conclude my remarks.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, I point out that we will finish at 16.52. On a point of clarification, although the hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct to say that there were no Labour Members present during the debate, it is not appropriate for a Labour shadow Minister to be here.

[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful for the correction, Mrs Main. Thank you very much indeed.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

The Minister has eight minutes left. I think he was taking an intervention.

[Mr Vaizey]

Yes, I will take that intervention again now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his generosity, even with his beard. He is being kind in responding to the comments from colleagues, but he has not responded to one particular point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire, which concerned BT’s performance as a monopoly provider. My parents moved house recently, well before Christmas. They moved into a mobile phone not spot in Begbroke in my constituency, and applied for wi-fi. It was only put in place on Monday. That is an unacceptable level of service, and it is common. How will the Minister improve the level of service from BT?

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. The Minister has two minutes left.

[Mr Vaizey]

I am aware of some of the problems Openreach has. It is recruiting some 1,500 additional engineers. My glass is always half full, so I praise Openreach for the work it has done. I visited some Openreach engineers working in my constituency over the Christmas period, when they were busily wiring up 360 of my constituents in the village of Steventon.

To sum up, we have the superfast broadband programme. We also have the mobile infrastructure project, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire pointed out, there are 10 MIP sites in his constituency. It has been tough going, getting the MIP up and running, not least dealing with landlords. However, we are also upgrading the technology so that it can accommodate 3G and 4G as well. Of course, there is also the landmark deal that my hon. Friend referred to: we have negotiated with the mobile operators to provide 90% geographic coverage, which will get rid of two thirds of not spots. That was a deal done without the need for legislation and time-consuming consultation. Already, the mobile operators are committed to 98% coverage of premises, but 90% geographic coverage will make a significant difference to rural areas.

I must make it clear that, despite the rightly testing nature of some of the speeches of and questions put by my hon. Friends today, we are on the same side, in the sense that we absolutely recognise the needs of rural communities. That is why we started the superfast broadband programme, why we extended it to phase 2, why we are looking to extend it to phase 3, why we have put in place the MIP and why we have put together the deal with the mobile phone companies.

However, implementation is quite another matter. I absolutely hear the concerns of many of my hon. Friends about how, and the speed with which, these projects are being implemented. I assure them that the superfast broadband roll-out programme is now going very quickly indeed. The roll-out of 4G is the fastest anywhere in the western world, and we have put a rocket under the MIP as well.

I welcome this debate and the forthcoming Adjournment debate, and I look forward to my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire, who so ably secured this debate, having a debate in the main Chamber so that we can examine these issues in more detail. I apologise for the fractured nature of my speech. I wanted to take as many interventions as possible, but we have been interrupted by Commons business and the odd joke.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order.