Broadband

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I welcome the Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy to his place, and I thank Mr Speaker for allowing time for this vital debate.

This debate is about the management and delivery of broadband, which covers a multitude of sins that I hope we can examine today. Many right hon. and hon. Members have constituents who are not included in the existing broadband roll-out and businesses that are looking to relocate if they cannot get broadband. Therefore, this is a timely debate. I hope to use it to address some of our concerns about the national roll-out of broadband in the UK and the management of Broadband Delivery UK. I will make some civic remarks about the current broadband delivery programme in Devon and Somerset and the work of BT.

It has been more than 20 years since the UK Government published their first Command Paper that was available on the internet. Today, broadband is vital in accessing public services. Since July 2012, the Government have committed to becoming digital wherever possible. The Government Digital Service, which created the gov.uk website—the single point of entry to online services—has provided firm leadership in the digital age, and it even won the Design Museum’s “designs of the year” award in 2013. Putting public services online is not a cost-cutting exercise, but a vital part of streamlining Government services. It makes services easier for the public to use and more responsive to their needs. I commend the Government and the Minister on their work on leading the digital revolution.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this urgent and important debate. Will he deal in his speech with who is responsible for the fact that some areas are below others in getting superfast broadband? Huddersfield and three other Yorkshire towns and cities, which are centres of this country’s manufacturing economy, are among the worst 10 areas, while the top 10 are mainly, although not all, in the south of England. Who does the hon. Gentleman think is holding back some areas of the country? Will he pinpoint the barriers today?

[Neil Parish]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Naturally, I do not know his area well. Broadband is delivered partly through the Government and partly through companies. There are schemes in place in areas such as Devon and Somerset to connect rural broadband and rural users, and naturally I have had more experience of that. Certainly, the Government’s programme aims to ensure that the cities he mentions are also provided with broadband, but I suspect that he will be given an answer by the Minister.

[Mr Sheerman]

The Government and previous Governments have done very well on this issue, so, unusually for me, I am not berating the Government. People keep saying that BT is responsible. Is BT holding things back or not?

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish]

I entitled this debate in a broad fashion, so it is right for my hon. Friend to raise that point. The black spots are not just in rural areas, as the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) also mentioned. I have a series of questions that I want the Minister to answer at the end of the debate, but I hope that he is taking note of that point; I know that he is working very hard on it. If someone is in an area where they cannot get broadband, they are very frustrated, and when they have heard that packages have been put together to deliver it, that infuriates them even more. We need to be very aware of that.

[Mr Sheerman]

Before the hon. Gentleman moves off black spots, may I just have one more bite at that? I understand the black spots and the rural dimension, but as this lovely graph shows, nine out of 10 of the top-performing broadband innovations are in the south of England. It is the reverse in the north of England, where the worst-performing areas are. This is not just little black spots in the countryside; they are in major towns and cities. That is why we are so angry.

[Neil Parish]

I repeat that I am sure the Minister is aware of that, and I hope that he can answer the hon. Gentleman’s question. He is right to raise that issue. My constituency has many problems not only in the Blackdown hills and on parts of Exmoor, but on the edge of towns as well, so this is not just about rural broadband.