Broadband Rollout: Devon and Somerset

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Anthony Mangnall

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Fovargue. I want to thank the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) for calling the debate. It has been a huge pleasure for me to listen to so many excellent and well-informed contributions. As a north-east MP, who is not allowed to travel far at the moment, I feel that I have been on a tour of Somerset and Devon and I very much appreciated it. I feel for the Members who have eloquently expressed concern about the impact of the lack of the digital infrastructure they need and deserve on the people of Devon and Somerset. I do not know whether the Minister has enjoyed the debate quite as much, but I shall briefly summarise some of what was said.

I was amazed to learn that Tiverton and Honiton’s ranking was as low as 627th, but then I found that North Devon is even further down. Obviously there are comparisons to be made, and someone has to come top and bottom. Even so, despite Devon and Somerset having 1.5% of households in the country, 5% of homes there are located in notspots. In Somerset West, one in 20 households are unable to receive the minimum 10 megabits, which is the Government’s definition of decent broadband. That figure increases to nearly 12% of households in east and west Devon. The hon. Members for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton), for East Devon (Simon Jupp), for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), for North Devon, and for Tiverton and Honiton all emphasised how the pandemic had truly brought home to us the importance of connectivity at this time.

Every Member referenced the Connecting Devon and Somerset broadband scheme, which the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton described as too slow. However, the scheme exceeds the UK’s superfast broadband roll-out target set by the coalition Government, which called for 90% coverage by 2015. Unfortunately, mismanagement under the coalition Government meant that, nationally, the target was not reached and was missed by a year. If a local scheme that outperforms the Government’s is too slow and needs to be reviewed, the Government’s own position on broadband has been lacklustre and should also be up for review. [Interruption.] I do have mobile coverage here.

[Anthony Mangnall]

The hon. Lady started her speech by saying that she felt the experience of our lack of connectivity in the south-west. She is more than welcome to come and experience it at any time.

[Chi Onwurah]

I really am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that timely intervention. I meant to say that I felt for the experience, but I am keen to feel the actual experience in the gorgeous surroundings that he has so well described. The products and services sound so very attractive.

We have had 10 wasted years for telecoms infrastructure under this Government. I was a chartered engineer who worked in telecoms for 20 years before coming into Parliament, which I mention from time to time, and the decade that I have been in Parliament has coincided with a rapid relative decline in the quality of our telecommunications infrastructure. Labour made great strides in building a digital economy. Our Communications Act 2003 set out the strategy and vision for a decade. Our office of the internet was a world leader, and we oversaw the roll-out of the first generation of broadband to more than 50% of households by 2009.

Labour’s plans would have seen two-thirds of UK households have access to services of up to 40 megabits by 2015. Unfortunately, that is now not the case, consecutive Tory Governments having squandered that world-leading position. Several Members mentioned the need for effective competition and not the over-building of fibre to one home, and not the absence of any competition or a monopoly provider. Under Labour, we had competitive infrastructure competitions, including the local loop, but since then we have seen U-turns, dither and delay in infrastructure roll-out, including the BDUK scheme, which re-emphasised Openreach—indeed, BT—effectively as a monopoly provider. All phase 1 contracts and funding under the scheme went to British Telecom, and the Public Accounts Committee warned that that restricted the Department’s ability to insist on value for money. Will the Minister set out his strategy for encouraging effective competition, particularly in rural broadband? It is concerning to see that as a country that invented the fibre-optic cable—