Broadband: Social Tariffs

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

We are working with providers to make sure that faster broadband connection can be rolled out to people across the country and that those costs are not passed on to consumers. It is of course in providers’ interests to provide fast connections and products that people want to use.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, given the pressure on hospital beds and the move to virtual wards, whereby patients are looked after at home and monitored through electronic devices, what are the Government doing to ensure the rapid installation of adequate broadband in homes with no connectivity, so that patients can be cared for in these virtual wards —which are being set up specifically because there are not enough beds in the NHS to take them?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Baroness touches on work about which it may be better for my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to respond. We are working to ensure that everybody has connection to high-speed internet, and through social tariffs it is now available in 99% of the country.