Broadband: Rural Communities

Debate between Chris Bryant and Flick Drummond

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It is universally acknowledged that you are the snappiest dresser in the House, Mr Dowd, so it is great to see you in your place here today. I feel very odd—in the past few weeks, I have been to both the cinema and the theatre with the Minister and I am now in a debate with him for the second time today. There is to be another debate today, though I cannot be there. I do feel as if I am spending more time with the Minister than is good for my marriage. I do not think he will break with any precedent by answering any questions today, but we will try.

I commend the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) on securing this debate. This is the second time we have debated this precise issue, but it is important to keep on fighting the battle. He may have caught the Minister and me smiling or laughing a bit because the hon. Gentleman referred to Ofcom and network coverage issues and both I am the Minister made the same point during the earlier debate—that, quite often, Ofcom’s version of reality is so different from the experience of ordinary people that it really is time that Ofcom and the providers looked much more carefully at how they present what they purport to be evidence of coverage.

Likewise, the Minister will no doubt say—he announced it this morning—that he is putting the PSTN switchover on pause, which is a good idea. He referred to several other matters where the Government are taking action because there are very legitimate concerns about how the switchover will affect the provision of quite a lot of services. Indeed, following this morning’s debate, the Minister will be delighted to know that I have tabled questions to ask him how many traffic lights in the UK depend on PSTN. I look forward to hearing his answers.

The hon. Member for West Dorset referred to Stoke Abbott, which was thus described in 1906:

“as pretty a village as any in Dorset.”

I was delighted to be in Bridport a few weeks ago with his predecessor, Oliver Letwin, who has a slightly different view of the present Government from him, I think.

It is always good to have the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). We missed him this morning; I believe he was at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. He made an important point about livestock: most farmers must have some kind of digital connectivity simply to do their job. They cannot pretend to be Gabriel Oak and Bathsheba Everdene from “Far from the Madding Crowd”; to make a living in agriculture, one must have a modern farm.

The hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) is absolutely doughty on these issues. I feel as if I have lived in her kitchen now, because this is the second time I have heard the stories about her hubs and her platelets or whatever it is that she had to have installed. She was determined to find some positive news, but mostly came out with negative news. There are real problems for anyone who wants to be able to deliver. As she herself said, no one will lay fibre 5 miles down a lane to a single house, so other options must be available. She referred to satellite. Obviously, we want to see much greater technical innovation in this field so that no one is left out.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) complained about the Government’s lackadaisical attitude. I have heard him make some of his speech before, but there is no danger in repetition—that is the only way one ever gets anything done in politics, so I commend him for that.

The hon. Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) is a wonderful swimmer, as I know because I recruited her to the parliamentary swimming team, and she had a list of people who had been kind of given preferential treatment. If someone in a community needs to have more than superfast broadband in order to do their job but the whole community does not get the same, that can be a problem.

[Mrs Drummond]

Let me just qualify that: only two public servants, who I did not mention, got fast broadband. The ones I mentioned did not get fast broadband. I was explaining that they were equally important. I did not mention the ones who got fast broadband for obvious reasons—I think they are quite embarrassed about getting fast broadband before their neighbours. There are huge numbers of very important people who also need it.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

If I got anything faster than anyone else on my street, I think my neighbours would lynch me.