Asked by: Calum Kerr (Scottish National Party - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many emergency services masts are planned for construction in Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk constituency; and what steps she is taking to ensure that mobile phone services are provided from all four mobile network operators at emergency services network sites.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
In delivering the Emergency Services Network (ESN), the mobile network operator EE will deliver up to 291 new mast sites. Government will deliver approximately 230 further sites (known as the “Extended Area Services” (EAS) sites) in the most remote and rural areas of Great Britain. Under the terms of the State Aid decision for ESN, any ESN site where EE offers a commercial service must be made available to the other UK mobile operators and interested parties to provide their own a service on an equal and non-discriminatory basis. The purpose of EAS is to deliver a ‘blue-light’ communications service. The service it will provide is based on road coverage and it has been this requirement which has driven the selection of sites across the country. Site selection criteria for commercial services is done on a different basis; and consequently, there is a variation in the basic requirement of EAS and those of commercial operators.
The Home Office led Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP), does recognise the need to exploit the sites being built in the EAS for wider commercial use. ESMCP has been in discussion with the governments of Wales and Scotland, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and has agreed to build these sites, wherever possible, to a design specification that can be readily enhanced to allow site-sharing with commercial operators.
For the Westminster Constituency of Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, there are currently up to 5 proposed new EE sites in the constituency and the EAS project intend to build twelve new EAS radio sites. In addition, three existing Airwave masts are under consideration, subject to a feasibility investigation. Delivery of these sites is subject to planning permission and the acquisition of land.
Asked by: Calum Kerr (Scottish National Party - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the emergency services network masts will be designed and built to provide multi-occupancy sites from all four mobile network operators.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
In delivering the Emergency Services Network (ESN), the mobile network operator EE will deliver up to 291 new mast sites. Government will deliver approximately 230 further sites (known as the “Extended Area Services” (EAS) sites) in the most remote and rural areas of Great Britain.
Under the terms of the State Aid decision for ESN, any ESN site where EE offers a commercial service must be made available to the other UK mobile operators and interested parties to provide their own a service on an equal and non-discriminatory basis.
There are 18 potential EAS sites being considered in the constituency of Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk. There are currently up to 5 proposed new EE sites in the constituency. Delivery of these sites is subject to planning permission and the acquisition of land.
Asked by: Calum Kerr (Scottish National Party - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether geographic location data for the emergency services network sites built by (a) the Government and (b) EE will be published.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
In delivering the Emergency Services Network (ESN), the mobile network operator EE will deliver up to 291 new mast sites. Government will deliver approximately 230 further sites (known as the “Extended Area Services” (EAS) sites) in the most remote and rural areas of Great Britain.
Under the terms of the State Aid decision for ESN, any ESN site where EE offers a commercial service must be made available to the other UK mobile operators and interested parties to provide their own a service on an equal and non-discriminatory basis.
There are 18 potential EAS sites being considered in the constituency of Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk. There are currently up to 5 proposed new EE sites in the constituency. Delivery of these sites is subject to planning permission and the acquisition of land.
Asked by: Calum Kerr (Scottish National Party - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that Extended Area Service mast sites for the Emergency Services Network will be capable of accommodating multiple vendors to afford optimum potential for all users.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Emergency Services Network (ESN) is being put in place to provide a new generation of communications for the emergency services and its focus must be to provide the critical national infrastructure to do so. Aligned with the Mobile Network Operators, Government has ambitions to improve mobile coverage in the UK. Clearly, where practicable, it makes sense to ensure that ESN helps to meet both objectives. Government is in communication with the operators to confirm how we will do that in practice.
Asked by: Calum Kerr (Scottish National Party - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her policy is on the Save the Children proposal to relocate 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children who have arrived in Europe to the UK.
Answered by James Brokenshire
As the Prime Minister said to Parliament in December, we are looking again at the issue of bringing Syrian children to the UK. In any consideration we must ensure that our proposals are in the best interests of those children affected and do not inadvertently put children at additional risk.
Our Syrian resettlement programme has already resettled vulnerable children as part of family groups, with over 1000 refugees resettled by Christmas.