Broadband Speed

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My noble friend is right. An additional £30 million of funding is available through Defra, which has allocated grant funding from the Rural Development Programme for England, targeted at helping the very businesses that my noble friend has raised to be sure that they have proper broadband coverage.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

Picking up on that question, does the Minister not agree that hard- to-reach rural communities will lose out because of the £3,400 cost cap placed on the USO provision arrangements? Are people in such areas to be denied broadband access or do the Government have a cunning plan?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The cunning plan, to reassure the noble Baroness, is perhaps in the marvellously worded “barrier-busting task force”. This is designed to help relax planning laws and to roll out, particularly in rural areas, faster broadband.