Rural Communities in Scotland: Broadband

Bill Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

As always, it is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth.

I congratulate my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), on securing this debate. He has spoken eloquently about the importance to his constituency and Scotland of the roll-out of broadband. Unfortunately, I believe some others—possibly people who have superfast broadband—trivialise this matter.

Let me say, however, that no one should downplay the force of the statistics for Scotland as a whole and the figures for my constituency of East Lothian. Fewer than half of our rural communities—46%—have access to superfast speeds. Some 37% of premises in rural areas are unable to receive download speeds greater than 10 megabits per second. Closer to home, 80% of rural constituents in my area said that they were dissatisfied with their internet, and the median download speed in East Lothian—the constituency that lies just south of the central belt—is just 14.1 megabits per second. Those figures should rightly be viewed as a catalyst for change and although I welcome the UK and Scottish Governments’ commitment to the roll-out of superfast broadband, I think those on all sides can agree that an enormous amount of work still needs to be done.

Another notable figure that struck me and came to my attention during the campaign is that 12% of my constituents work from home. That is not only above the Scottish average, but well above the constituency average for the whole of the UK. There are in fact only 34 constituencies in the UK where there are more home workers than in East Lothian. Herein lies the problem: business owners who work from home in rural areas, dependent on broadband, are resigned to travelling to cafés and coffee shops just to email or download information. That is a situation that I know many business owners across East Lothian regrettably recognise.

In East Lothian we have Lothian Broadband Networks Ltd, which started as a community company that offered access to the internet in areas not served by BT Openreach. These social entrepreneurs used innovative technology to beam access from transmitters to individual houses, via dishes, to allow people to access the internet. They form part of the third sector that competes with BT Openreach and Virgin Media. Many of those third parties are members of INCA, the Independent Networks Co-operative Association, and in its response to Ofcom’s wholesale local access market review it pointed out that current policy appears to highlight a mysterious absence of these third parties in solving the problems that face whole communities.

[Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)]

Like many constituencies in Scotland, Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock has very poor coverage of broadband. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there are many fragile communities in Scotland with falling school rolls, poor transport, shops closing and pubs closing, and that an efficient level of broadband is essential to secure the future of those fragile rural communities?

[Martin Whitfield]

I wholeheartedly agree. Broadband is now an essential; it is not a luxury. It is one of the things that matrix together our communities, particularly those that are facing other challenges such as school closures, community cuts and local authority cuts.