Baroness O'Cathain
Main Page: Baroness O'Cathain (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness O'Cathain's debates with the Leader of the House
(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, nearly 80% of homes and businesses have superfast broadband, yet only 22% of all broadband connections are superfast.
Baroness O'Cathain (Con)
My Lords, is the Minister aware of how great a social exclusion issue this is becoming? Only today the Carnegie UK Trust and Ipsos MORI brought out research showing that it is now a serious issue, particularly in Scotland. What are we going to do? It is not the speed of broadband that matters in this case but the actual access to it.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I completely agree with my noble friend. As I said, a bare minimum of two megabits per second will be in place by the end of this year and in Scotland by the end of 2017. As I said to my noble friend Lord Holmes, we, too, regard this as an essential service today.