Broadband: Rural Communities

Debate between Chris Loder and Flick Drummond

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) for securing this incredibly important debate. Like others, getting better broadband for my constituents in has been a key focus of my work since 2019. During covid it became clear how isolated some of my constituents could become.

I want to raise awareness of a couple of issues in particular, which are still holding us back. I am afraid I am not as positive as my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) about Openreach. The communities of Kilmeston, Bramdean and Cheriton had a gigabit voucher approved by Building Digital UK more than a year ago but, since then, Openreach has delayed things.

First, Openreach told constituents that BDUK was the hold-up on approving the gigabit programme vouchers. When I contacted BDUK, it turned out it had not been given all the information it had requested. I had to ask BDUK to extend the deadline for the previous scheme to get the vouchers approved, and it did so. I am grateful to BDUK for all its hard work and for responding so quickly to my questions.

Since then, Openreach has dithered about installing the fibre. Again, constituents were told SSE was the blocker. I met SSE and it turned out that every other telecoms provider agrees nationwide licences with SSE for its poles to carry cables, but Openreach has not. Openreach has agreed to pay for the licence for this project but there is apparently a delay in getting the payment made to SSE. That nonsense had been dragging on for months, and I understand the sheer exasperation of my constituents.

There are a couple of senior public servants who were given fast broadband very quickly. That is fine but, while doing that, Openreach bypassed many other residents with equally important jobs: the director of NHS emergency services; a consultant orthopaedic spinal surgeon; three GPs; a CEO responsible for vehicle fleet support for 12 police forces, two first-aid services and two ambulance trusts; a project manager for a national mobile telephone company; project manager for SSE, ironically; a senior TV news correspondent; the editor of a national sports newspaper; and many more, which I will not list now.

I complained about this to the CEO of Openreach and I got diverted to the MPs’ complaints department. Does he know how his company is performing in rural areas? I will keep battling on to break this logjam, but perhaps it would be useful for Ofcom to look into how different infrastructure owners work together in practice. Although we have guidelines, it seems more can be done to facilitate getting cables installed.

A second problem relates to constituents who have been abandoned completely by another company. The company, now branded as Trooli but originally Call Flow, has told residents of Woodlands in my constituency that it is discontinuing its services. That has come out of the blue, with minimal information supplied. They are being told to switch to 4G; the trouble is there is no 4G in that area. Although Trooli says it is within its rights to do this, surely it is unacceptable that a company that has had public money to set up its network can simply walk aways from it, when there is no viable replacement.

[Chris Loder]

Does my hon. Friend agree that some of these unscrupulous providers, who suggest they are going to do things but then backtrack and fail to deliver, should be properly held to account, and that we should find ways to ensure that Ofcom does that?

[Mrs Drummond]

Absolutely, and I hope Ofcom is listening to the debate. It is disgraceful that public money is being used and wasted. Hampshire County Council supported the installation and has done everything it can to help me across the constituency. This is not any fault of the council, and I am grateful for its support. Trooli’s behaviour has been appalling, and I would welcome the Minister’s advice on how I can put this right. I will also ask Ofcom to look at the matter.

This community will be included in the procurement scheme, with CityFibre hooking it up in future. However, the community cannot be left without provision in the meantime, though I hope it will be prioritised for the future work. The Government-funded Hampshire procurement is fantastic news for Meon Valley. The technology is evolving with 5G on the way. It is vital that we use every means of getting better broadband into our communities. I will keep pushing Government and the private sector on this issue, because businesses, families and schools depend on being able to work at high speed. It is very frustrating for everyone when it takes so long to put in.