Rural Phone and Broadband Connectivity

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

There is many a slip between cup and installation of rural cabinet. I know that the Minister will have those boxes firmly in his mind when he responds.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

One of the saddest stories I have heard from my constituents in Fownhope is that on Monday mornings they get texts from their children’s schools telling them what matches they should have turned up to on the previous Saturday. It is the failure to provide broadband and a mobile phone signal that is causing the greatest difficulties in my constituency. I hope the Minister will keep the pressure on BT. It is delaying the connections that would enable the use of other types of telephone signal in the absence of sufficient broadband width on which companies could base their rural solutions.