Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chloe Smith and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(9 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Vaizey
I am delighted to tell the hon. Gentleman that our rural superfast broadband project is going extremely well, and we should have reached 90% of the country by the beginning of 2016, but broadband is already, in effect, universally available to 99% of the population.
Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)
The Minister received East Anglia’s digital divide proposal on rural mobile and broadband, including a request for Norwich to be made a super-connected city. Will he update East Anglia on his consideration of that?
Mr Vaizey
We had an extremely good meeting with my hon. Friend and her East Anglian colleagues, and we are looking carefully at the proposals they made. Norfolk, Suffolk and many other counties in East Anglia are great examples of counties that do not just sit back but take the lead and come up with interesting initiatives and proposals.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chloe Smith and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(10 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Vaizey
The right hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point. The remembrance activities must involve all communities, and we should be tremendously proud of the way in which the communities are getting involved. One of the important parts of the commemorations over the next four years will be to bring younger generations into these activities.
Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)
On that important point about younger generations learning about the almighty sacrifices that were made in the great war, will the Minister give us an update on the millions of pounds of funding he has put towards schools’ battlefield tours?
Mr Vaizey
I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend that more than £5 million has been set aside to enable secondary schools to visit battlefield sites. Over the course of four years, every secondary school in the United Kingdom will be able to send at least two pupils to visit the battlefields of world war one.