Media Bill

David Duguid Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 30th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Ross]

The hon. Gentleman represents an extremely rural part of northern Scotland. My constituency is not quite so rural, but many people in Moray experience similar challenges to those of his constituents in the far north.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making some excellent points and I am hesitant to interrupt him. Although I would not sell his constituency short, my constituency is also very rural. Our constituencies, in common with many of the rural constituencies in Scotland, are very low down the league table of superfast broadband coverage. As much as people might be able to afford or want streaming services, they do not physically have access to them—at least, not yet. Does he agree that makes his new clause even more important?

[Douglas Ross]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point and for supporting my new clause 8. I will come on to not just the affordability but the availability of superfast broadband to get streaming services.

I highlight the importance of broadcast services for rural constituents, including mine in Moray, as well as those of my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) and the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone). Graham Biggs, chief executive of the Rural Services Network, has amplified that point, saying that the

“issue of safeguarding DTT and radio is of fundamental importance to rural areas where the population is much older than the national average and the least well served by broadband connectivity. We strongly support the Broadcast 2040+ campaign.”

I have been extremely encouraged by the work of that campaign to get some movement from the Government on the issue.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan highlighted, the issue of broadband connectivity is of huge concern to constituents in his area, as well as in my Moray constituency. Large parts of Scotland and rural areas around the UK do not have reliable, high-speed broadband, so streaming TV is not an option. I have little confidence that the problem will be solved by 2040, particularly given some of the problems we have seen with the roll-out of the R100 programme in Scotland.

Even if that roll-out succeeds, all the targets are met and high-speed broadband is delivered across the country, the other measure that we must look at is broadband take-up. EY has recently undertaken a study on that, predicting that regardless of whether high-speed broadband is rolled out, more than 5.5 million properties in the UK will still not have a high-speed broadband subscription in 2040—well beyond 2034 as specified by my new clause. The report makes a number of other worrying findings and paints a compelling picture of the genuine dependence that millions of the most vulnerable members of our society have on broadcast services to stay connected and in touch. Any move towards an online-only system of TV distribution, without the option of digital terrestrial television, would put a significant group of people at risk of being left behind.

As for why I have tabled new clause 8 and why am I looking for certainty from the Government, both they and Ofcom are conducting reviews of the TV market. Ministers have urged us to await those findings, but 2034 is not far away and if these services are to remain, it is crucial that we attract investment and ensure that they remain commercially viable. To do that, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen North correctly said, they need certainty from the Government. The danger is that without that longer-term certainty, beyond 2034, where the Minister has accepted there is a live question, broadcasters might run down their services and the technology might not be updated. If they get certainty from the Government, they can put in investment to ensure people are not without these crucial services and are not left isolated. If the commercial viability of the service is lost while millions of people are still relying on it, there is a real risk that, perversely, the Government would have to step in and use taxpayers’ money to keep the service going. My constructive proposal would not only help keep people connected but, in the long run, perhaps save taxpayers’ money. Surely it is better to provide the longer-term guarantee now that would enable that investment and deliver a good-quality, universal service for years to come.

I thank the Minister, the interim Minister and the Secretary of State and others who have listened to my concerns on this issue. I met the Minister just last week and I will continue the dialogue on this, because it is a crucial element that we should be debating in this House. I hope we will get some movement from the Government. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) said, Media Bills do not come along often, so this is an opportunity for this Minister, this Government and her Department to put my new clause 8 into the Bill and give that guarantee going forward. That would allow the investment to be made and secure the commercial future for DTT, ensuring that people in Moray, across Scotland and around the UK can continue to rely on those services for many years to come.

Shared Rural Network Implementation

David Duguid Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Helen Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Obviously we want to improve the signal, but not blight the countryside with big, ugly lattice masts. A key ask of the debate is that we look at the way in which the companies share equipment to reduce the amount of additional infrastructure that has to be built across the countryside.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) makes a very good point: we have to take into consideration the concerns of communities when we build infrastructure. However, a notification of a planning application has come across my desk today that is not about building a new structure but is about upgrading the transmission equipment at the top of a structure. Very often, it is a case not of putting up anything new but upgrading what is already there. That should not be a problem.

[Helen Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, and I will come on to it. The importance of mast and equipment sharing is that hopefully we can streamline the process to upgrade the sites where the equipment is now, and limit the number of additional sites that are applied for.

Some 15.1% by area of North Shropshire is a partial notspot for data, and one in five premises can use only one operator for a phone call. There is a problem of competition, or the lack of it, in rural areas. We all understand that there are logistical challenges with putting masts in wild areas: a power supply is needed, and it might be an area of outstanding beauty, for example. There are all sorts of reasons why it might be difficult. We see the effect of that every day.

In North Shropshire less than 60% of premises have indoor coverage from all operators, compared with the UK average of 86%. The situation is worse in our villages than towns. Less than a third of people who live outside the towns have a choice of more than one mobile operator. That is all based on the existing data maps of coverage, but we know, because the Minister acknowledged it in oral questions recently, that these data maps are extremely optimistic and do not always reflect the lived experience of people on the ground. I mentioned that I had some open meetings with constituents in the summer, and that was one of their key gripes. The map said that they had a signal, but the reality was nothing like that. Accurate data is really important to ensure that when the providers “meet their obligations”, that is actually what is happening on the ground and not just a theoretical outcome.

The shared rural network involves the four mobile network operators spending £500 million of their own money to end partial notspots. Those areas are deemed to be commercially viable because one operator has already decided to put a mast there and provide a service to the people living there. EE announced that it has already met its obligations under the shared rural network to reduce its partial notspots by June 2024. It did that a couple of weeks ago, so it is running six months ahead of schedule, but as reported in The Daily Telegraph, the other three providers have requested a delay and say that they will not hit the 2024 target. This is where the concern arises.

Some of that is down to planning resource. As discussed, planning resource is very difficult. Lots of councils have high levels of vacancy and their planning departments have logistical challenges. There is also resistance to new infrastructure. That all causes a problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Duguid]

The hon. Lady is making some excellent points. What she says brings to mind a point that I almost raised when my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) was speaking. Does the hon. Lady agree that as there is more and more of an assumption that we are all digitally connected—whether it is through online banking or through annoying songs for our children—people who are not connected are made to feel even more remote as the digital world develops without them?

[Sarah Dyke]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. A recent report from the National Farmers Union confirmed that by stating that four out of five farmers do not have reliable mobile signal throughout their farms, and one in 20 has no outdoor locations with reliable mobile signal.

My constituents have been in touch with me to relay their fears of being left unconnected to mobile networks. In West Bradley, an elderly couple who suffer from numerous health issues told me that they have no mobile reception in their home. Their telephone provider is looking to switch them to a digital landline, meaning that in the event of a power cut they would be left unable to contact emergency services. That is a very real and scary prospect for many people living in rural areas.

Swathes of Wincanton are 4G partial notspots, meaning that they are not served by any of the mobile operators. Currently, that means that residents who may receive coverage with EE, for example, do not receive any coverage when they cross the town and surrounding areas as they go about their daily lives. That problem could be resolved with the introduction of rural roaming, which would allow residents to connect to any network active in their area even if 4G is not available through their operator. Back in 2018, Ofcom stated that rural roaming could be a solution for the notspot issues that plague our rural communities, yet the Government and the operators have simply refused.

As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire stated, she has tabled a Bill that would incentivise operators to allow customers to rural roam. I fully support those sensible measures to help my constituents who suffer the plight of unfair mobile connectivity, and I hope to see quick progress with the shared rural network to ensure that rural areas are not left any more behind than they are already.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Data and Digital Infrastructure (Julia Lopez)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Maria. I thank the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for securing this very important debate on the implementation of a shared rural network. I am glad to have her support for the SRN, and I thank her for showcasing the Government’s commitment to this extremely important programme. I am grateful to the hon. Members who have contributed to this debate, which speaks to the importance of connectivity in everybody’s constituencies. I will say a little more about that later.

I need to set out some of the challenges that we have when it comes to telecoms. There are balances to be made in terms of investment and infrastructure versus competition and low prices for consumers and making sure that MNOs implement their security commitments. Some of these things are difficult for us, but we are making good progress in getting people the connectivity that they need.

The shared rural network is a deal between the UK Government and the four mobile network operators—EE, Three, Virgin Media, O2 and Vodafone—signed in March 2020 to share an investment of £1 billion. It is delivering 4G coverage to about 95% of the UK land mass by the end of 2025. That is a commitment whereby we put up half the money and they put up half the money. We think that this shows great value for the taxpayer in getting the connectivity that we want.

The SRN is there to tackle the digital divide issues that hon. Members have highlighted with respect to connectivity in urban and rural areas. It supports economic growth and contributes substantially to public safety; an element of it involves building on the emergency services network. It means much greater life chances for people in those connected communities. We all understand from the pandemic what having poor connectivity meant for education, healthcare and so much more, so I understand hon. Members’ desire to get connectivity as quickly as possible.

This is just one of the interventions that the Government are making when it comes to connectivity. I am sure that hon. Members will be familiar with Project Gigabit, with which we are trying to drive gigabit connectivity in people’s constituencies. It is incredibly well supported by hon. Members. I am always grateful for that engagement —particularly, if I may say so, from my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), who is single-handedly driving roll-out in Scotland.

[David Duguid]

In Banff and Buchan.

[Julia Lopez]

In Banff and Buchan particularly. I should like to say to my hon. Friend that there has been some progress. I know that he shares my frustration at the slowness of the Scottish roll-out, which is a unique situation whereby the Scottish Government are driving it, as opposed to the rest of the UK, where the UK Government are taking the lead.

[David Duguid]

Can the shared rural network programme be used to help to fill the notspots not just for mobile signal but for fixed signal? As the Minister has alluded to, the Scottish Government’s R100 programme has absolutely failed to deliver on their promises for fixed broadband.

[Julia Lopez]

My hon. Friend highlights a challenge whereby some communities have not only bad broadband connection, but bad telephone connection. Sometimes one can substitute for the other: people can tether off their phone signal. He has a constituency that has poor coverage for both, and I am very sympathetic. As he is aware, I am trying to do what I can as a UK Government Minister to substitute for some of the challenges that we have had with the Scottish roll-out.

We are looking at pilots on satellite connectivity in the very hardest areas to reach; we are also looking at some of the wireless solutions that my hon. Friend alluded to. Is the technology there? Some of these are probably not technologies that will substitute for gigabit roll-out, but we are seeing where they can. I can only assure him, as I do on a regular basis, that I am pushing and looking at every lever I have to get him the connectivity he desires. I should also say that we have had some progress in our discussions with the Scottish Government recently. We are having a regional procurement, and they are finally getting their act together on some of the more local procurement. I hope that my hon. Friend’s constituents will start to see the benefit.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Duguid Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman]

The hon. Member is absolutely right that B4RN does really great work and has been doing so for a number of years. It has a huge amount of expertise that I hope we can learn from when it comes to working across the country. One of the issues that we will be raising at the summit that I mentioned, which we will be heading to shortly, is street works. It is very important that that does not hold up works unnecessarily. She is of course also right to say that the voucher scheme needs to apply equally across the country in a way that works wherever people live.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

My constituency of Banff and Buchan is among those with the lowest coverage of superfast broadband in the whole United Kingdom. Aberdeenshire Council applied to the UK Government for additional support. One of the reasons it was declined, it was told, was that it was assumed that that would be covered by the Scottish Government’s R100 programme—the Reaching 100% programme. Now that the Scottish Government have admitted that this is going to be at least two years behind, can we revisit the coverage in places such as Banff and Buchan, with support from the UK Government, to make up for the shortfall left by the Scottish Government?

[Matt Warman]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the deeply disappointing delays to the R100 scheme administered by the Scottish Government. I will shortly be meeting my Scottish counterpart, Paul Wheelhouse, again to see how the Government can help the Scottish Government to go further and faster, because they certainly need to.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Duguid Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I will of course consider what the hon. Gentleman has said, but we must ensure that we preserve our ability, online as everywhere else, to debate and discuss issues that are sometimes uncomfortable and certainly controversial. I repeat, however, that no freedom of speech can survive in this country if we do not protect people’s ability to feel free to say what they think, free of intimidation and free of the threat of violence. Those who engage in intimidation or threats of violence should not find succour online or anywhere else.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

2. What steps he is taking to improve access to broadband in rural areas.

[The Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries (Margot James)]

The Government have invested £1.8 billion of public money to ensure that 95% of the country has access to superfast broadband. Broadband UK operates voucher schemes, and the Government are introducing a universal service obligation that will give everybody the right to a minimum speed of 10 megabits per second. These interventions are particularly designed to help people in rural areas.

[David Duguid]

I thank the Minister for her response. The Scottish National party has been boasting about the £600 million that the Scottish Government have supposedly invested—past tense—in the R100 broadband scheme. That money has not been invested; more than a year and a half after the funding was promised, they have still not got round to awarding the contracts. This so-called investment remains just a promise, and the ambition of 100% superfast access by 2021 is looking less realistic than ever. Can the Minister assure me that when she next meets Scottish Government Ministers, she will remind them of the importance of sticking to their timetable?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Minister’s responsibility is for the UK Government’s policy. She has no responsibility for the policy of the Scottish Government—a fact of which I am sure she is fully aware.

Community Broadband Schemes

David Duguid Excerpts

Thursday 15th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kerr]

I completely agree. There is a need for investment to create a truly national all-inclusive infrastructure network.

BT’s lack of investment in solutions for exchange-only connections is an example of what I am talking about. This will continue until we see a real divergence between BT Openreach and BT itself. Openreach should be charged with the delivery of this national infrastructure system to allow Britain to become a truly digital nation and an economy fit for the future.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

I am following my hon. Friend’s speech with great interest. He represents Stirling and we all think of Stirling as being the city of Stirling but it is a large rural constituency much like my constituency of Banff and Buchan, and we face similar issues, as we have discussed. We are often told that what we have to overcome are the technical, geographical and topographical issues, but these same premises have power cables and water lines going through the same topographical areas. It is actually a matter of cost.

[Stephen Kerr]

My hon. Friend makes a good point and I will come on to address some of the issues he has kindly raised.

It amazes me, when I listen to the stories of community broadband groups in my constituency, that community broadband schemes ever happen at all. It was a pleasure to be present at the official launch of the Balquhidder community broadband in March this year. Balquhidder is the resting place of Rob Roy MacGregor, perhaps the glen’s most famous son; he was an outlaw, thief and folk hero. It is a scattered rural community in one of the most beautiful parts of Scotland, which can also now boast one of the fastest broadband connections in the UK.

That is down to David Johnston and Richard Harris, two of my constituents, who belong to Balquhidder and who are real heroes in my eyes. They have shown true determination and grit to get this project through. I have met Richard and David many times and their perseverance and tenacity, and indeed that of the whole community, in the face of immovable slow government and unhelpful bureaucracy is inspiring. It is an example of the power of the people. David Johnston met my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) when he was Minister of State at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in Stirling to discuss the project. I invite the Minister to come to Balquhidder to hear Richard and David’s story for herself, because although the project came to fruition this year it started way back in 2007. Their experience was extraordinary; it was of official meeting after official meeting and of a series of ongoing disappointments and setbacks. When they started out, BT and the Scottish Government both withheld critical information from them about where upgrades would be happening and which communities would benefit from public funding. That meant that community schemes the length and breadth of Scotland were held up by indecision and dither.

European state aid rules cover broadband investment. That means that, when an area benefits from state-funded infrastructure, it cannot benefit from a second investment. These European rules narrow the field of Government aid, and that has meant that community schemes have been on hold for years while BT and the Scottish Government try to work out behind the scenes what their priorities and plans are. To some extent, we are still waiting, thanks to the state of dither they are in.

It is worth noting that these rules are widely and regularly ignored by other EU countries. The interpretation around intervention in digital infrastructure is a particularly egregious example of where the rules are not only infuriating but actively detrimental to our economy. Imagine for a moment if the EU told us we could not build a road, install a water pipe or upgrade a railway. It is a basic job of Government to ensure that critical national infrastructure is provided, including broadband infrastructure in rural communities. However, because public money is being used, they must conform to an endless litany of rules and regulation.

A similarly convoluted story is told in the Trossachs area, in a beautiful rural community in Stirling around the village of Brig o’ Turk and the visually impressive Ben Venue. This community pursued a wireless technology solution. It explored interesting and innovative technologies, only to be let down by Stirling Council, which finally scrapped its community broadband group in favour of taking direct political control. That was a regrettable decision and many community groups have expressed their frustration to me about that decision.

Many other issues impact negatively on community broadband schemes. They include the difficulties communities have establishing wayleaves with public sector organisations, especially the Forestry Commission, which see such things as an opportunity for revenue and profiteering, and the withdrawal of the UK broadband voucher scheme, which happened with no notice. That was another regrettable decision that left some communities without a viable scheme to draw resources from and no clarity at the time on what would replace it. I know that a replacement scheme has since come in, but the capriciousness of Government remains a real issue for community schemes.

The plethora of Government schemes thrown at communities is also a real problem. Community Broadband Scotland failed miserably in its objective to fund and develop community schemes. Its dithering and ineptitude have caused many community groups to turn away from this path. Then there is the involvement of Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband, which has done some good work but lacks transparency about its priorities and plans. That leaves communities without a clear idea of how they can get involved in bringing broadband to their community. Broadband Delivery UK has been slow to act in Scotland and, as I have said, has left communities high and dry by abandoning schemes and being unclear about its approach to local full-fibre networks in rural Scotland.

I have previously said in this House that I am concerned about the use of the national productivity investment fund for broadband investments, as recently outlined in the Budget speech. That is of absolutely no help to my constituents, or to Scottish constituencies. It is money that will be Barnettised and passed to the Scottish Government and, on past performance, the Scottish Government will not invest the money but continue their dithering.

Of course, this is not the only budgetary issue that affects my constituents. In England, the UK Government have created legislative measures to provide 100% business rates relief on new fibre infrastructure. In Scotland, we still await any like-for-like measure from the Scottish Government. Balquhidder is saddled with this cost, as are community schemes the length and breadth of Scotland. Again, while the UK Government act, the Scottish Government dither. In Scotland, the Scottish Government posture, claiming credit for every good thing, while blaming the UK Government for everything else. How, I ask the Minister, has this been allowed to happen?

Can the Minister assure me that her Department is fully cognisant of its responsibilities for broadband provision in Scotland? My hope is that she is open to my gentle but forthright encouragement that the Department should be seen to be far more active in Scotland than it has been. Scottish taxpayers pay toward expenses in reserved areas such as this, just as English taxpayers do, and it is not right that the UK Government should be handing over this reserved area to the ineptitude of the Scottish Government and stepping away.

We have seen some improvement over the past year, and I pay tribute to Ministers in the Department for their approach, but I hope the Minister will take the opportunity of this debate to commit to further action. The SNP has done with broadband what it has done with every issue: it has turned it into a grievance-inspired wedge so that it can talk about independence. That is as predictable as it is tedious, as the SNP does the same with health, education, transport, finance and agriculture —the list goes on.

Now we come to the real problem with broadband in Scotland. The Scottish Government have led communities down a garden path with promises of a shining city—a digital Jerusalem, if you will—and with their much-vaunted R100 project. The object of this project is to deliver by 2021 broadband services with a speed of more than 30 megabits per second to every household and business in Scotland. I commend to the Minister the Audit Scotland report from the spring of this year. It is bathed in the language we would expect of auditors, but it identified a clear problem with the R100 scheme, in that the timescale is unachievable given that the contract will not be awarded until next year—2019—and the objective is for 2021.

There is no adequate, long-term overall strategy. The Scottish Government’s objective is totally unrealistic. They are touting R100 as a catch-all solution to Scotland’s digital gap, as if saying the word often enough will get everyone to believe that. That approach belies the complexity and difficulty of getting the remaining properties connected to a superfast internet connection.

It is time for the Minister to reassess this issue and the UK Government’s whole approach to broadband delivery, especially in Scotland. Our vision should be for universal fibre-to-premise provision. We all know why that is necessary. We all know it will create jobs and allow people to live in remote and rural areas, such as those that make up most of my constituency. We all know that this is about educating the young, building viable businesses and providing remote healthcare into the future.

We should set an ambition of achieving a fully digitised, connected United Kingdom with a universal service of fibre to premise. That level of ambition will endow the British people with a technological edge. We should support communities to deliver that in every corner of these islands. It is time for the UK Government to really step up to the plate and to deliver for Scotland what the Scottish Government have consistently failed to deliver.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Duguid Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. Wakefield has a thriving cultural and museums sector. I am looking forward to visiting the Hepworth, Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the National Coal Mining Museum. I am looking forward to a visit to Wakefield soon.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

When it comes to superfast broadband, Scotland still lags behind the rest of the UK. Will my hon. Friend update the House on plans to allow Scottish local authorities to bid directly for UK Government funding?

[Margot James]

My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State made it clear earlier that full fibre roll-out plans will ensure that rural parts of my hon. Friend’s constituency are not left behind, whether that investment is made commercially or via the public purse.

Leaving the EU: Tourism and the Creative Industries

David Duguid Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Bone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) on securing this debate. It is also a pleasure to follow such a passionate speech from my fellow musician, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). It is unusual for us both to be on the same stage as we have been exchanging places in MP4 recently.

The United Kingdom is a powerhouse when it comes to the creative industries and tourism; we punch far above our weight and we lead the world with some of the most innovative and advanced thinking that is out there in the creative sector. In 2016 the creative industries contributed a staggering £91.8 billion to the UK economy. The sector grew by 7.5% compared with growth of 3.5% for the UK economy as a whole. The sector provides for 6% of all UK jobs, and the total employment in the creative economy is around 3 million people. That includes around 76,000 jobs in Scotland and rising, contributing more than £4.5 billion to the Scottish economy. We in Scotland are proud to be a major contributor towards those figures.

Scotland saw the fastest growth in creative industries employment of all nations in the UK from 2015 to 2016, at about 13%. That is almost three times as high as in England, and more than England, Wales and Northern Ireland combined. A report commissioned for Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen in 2014 found that the creative industries in the north-east of Scotland, where my constituency of Banff and Buchan is located, employ around 6,000 people in more than 1,500 businesses. In the north-east of Scotland alone the sector generated annual revenues in excess of £600 million. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West has called this debate to discuss the future of our creative industries and tourism after the UK leaves the EU. I agree that there are challenges to overcome.

The creative industries rely on cross-border working, and many people in those industries travel regularly for work in the EU, just as European citizens come here. We know that around 7% of people working in the creative sector are non-UK EU nationals, roughly in line with the average across all industries, but a significant number none the less. I ask the Government to keep the needs of this industry in mind when designing a future immigration system, whether that be the needs of the creative industry, tourism, hospitality or indeed those of the fishing and fish processing sectors and food and drink in general, which I have spoken up for in this place on several occasions.

So far I have talked mostly about the creative industries, but I also want to talk about tourism. For those who have not visited—I highly recommend that they do—my constituency of Banff and Buchan has 48 miles of stunning Scottish coastline, with one particular stretch, between Portsoy and Pennan, having been voted as one of the top 20 most iconic coastlines in the world. That stretch of coastline is interesting. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) talked extensively about the film industry. Portsoy was the site for the recent remake of the film “Whisky Galore!” and the old 17th-century harbour was almost a character in itself. Going back to the ’80s, “Local Hero”, a movie with Burt Lancaster, was set in Pennan. That goes to show how dramatic the coastline between those two villages is.

Also worth a special mention is the famous Aberdeenshire castle trail, which runs through my constituency via Duff House, Delgatie Castle and Fyvie Castle, among all the others across the north-east of Scotland. Banff and Buchan is also home to excellent heritage museums that highlight our traditional industries of fishing and farming. I should note that those museums show a living history, because those industries are far from dead in Banff and Buchan.

Golf is a popular pastime across Scotland—across the world, in fact—but Fraserburgh in my constituency has the seventh oldest, still operating, golf course in the world. National Geographic referred to the Banff and Buchan coast as

“one of the world’s outstanding coastlines”.

The local tourism board markets the area as “Scotland’s dolphin coast.” It is home to around 130 bottlenose dolphins, as well as 15 other species of cetaceans, including minke whales in the summer and autumn months. On a recent visit to Portsoy I saw someone with a telescope looking out to sea. I thought they were looking at dolphins, but it turned out they were looking for a bird that I had never heard of: the white-billed diver, which apparently comes south of Norway only very rarely. Portsoy is one of the few places south of Norway where that bird can be seen.

I very much hope that we can use Brexit as an opportunity to grow the industry and attract more visitors to our stunning shores. One example of this opportunity can be found in VAT rules. European VAT law currently limits the discretion of member states, including the UK before our exit, to set lower rates of VAT on some goods and services. That means we are limited in our ability to reduce so-called tourism tax below the current 20%. After we leave the EU, the Government will have the opportunity to reduce tourism VAT and make the UK an even more attractive destination for foreign visitors. I hope that they will consider seizing this opportunity and use Brexit as a springboard for our tourism industry.

[Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I welcome what the hon. Gentleman has said and congratulate him on painting a very attractive picture of his constituency. On the opportunities after Brexit with regard to VAT, as he knows, we have been promoting that issue in respect of Northern Ireland, but there can also be opportunities right across the United Kingdom. We have heard a lot of pessimism, but there are opportunities to be grasped, particularly in tourism, and I commend him for what he said about VAT.

[David Duguid]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I agree that we have an opportunity to be a lot more positive about Brexit.

[Christine Jardine]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the possibility of varying VAT once we have left the European Union, but is he aware that 25 members of the European Union currently vary VAT on the tourism industry? In France, for example, it is only 9% for a hotel or a tourist attraction. It would be possible today for the UK Government to vary VAT on the tourism sector.

[David Duguid]

I have no reason to doubt the hon. Lady. That was not my understanding, but I will definitely look into that.

To conclude, we can be exceptionally proud of our creative and tourism industries in this country. I fully understand the concerns put forward by hon. Members as a result of Brexit, but I gently suggest that perhaps erring too much on the side of caution and pessimism is not necessarily the way to go. We are a world leader in this area, and that will not disappear overnight—far from it. The Government rightly speak about building a new global Britain after Brexit. Why not build it on the back of our sensational creative talent and beautiful destinations?

Rural Communities in Scotland: Broadband

David Duguid Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on securing this important debate. He and I share a passion for ensuring that rural communities such as his, mine in Banff and Buchan and those represented in the Chamber are not left behind in the roll-out of superfast broadband. I welcome the comments from the hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) on the increasingly essential nature of broadband access. It is no longer a “nice to have”; it is becoming a more and more essential part of everyday life.

Rural broadband is a major priority for the Scottish Conservatives, as it should be. As of 2016, only 83% of Scottish premises had access to superfast broadband. Admittedly that was an increase from 73% the previous year, but it compared with the UK average of 89%. Only one Scottish constituency is in the top 100 for access to superfast broadband speeds, while 23, including my own constituency, are in the bottom 100. What makes the situation particularly frustrating for Scottish Conservative Members of Parliament is that despite the SNP’s claims to the contrary, improving the situation is the responsibility of the Scottish Government in Holyrood. While broadband is a reserved matter and broadband roll-out is a UK-wide policy funded by the UK Government, in Scotland the Scottish Government are responsible for leading the delivery of the roll-out. The House of Commons briefing paper—it is number CBP06643, if anyone is interested—of 9 March 2017 makes that very clear. It states unambiguously:

“Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) is responsible for managing the Government’s broadband funding. Individual projects are the responsibility of local authorities in England and the devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as set out in BDUK’s delivery model.”

Incidentally, I found it interesting that, as far as I could tell, nobody from the SNP appeared to be present at yesterday’s Parliament and internet conference—I apologise if they were and I did not notice—which was hosted in part by the Minister. It had a significant session in the afternoon, specifically on connectivity. With their constant grievance that the internet is reserved, I would have thought that SNP Members would have been all over it, putting pressure on the Minister. The First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, certainly did not seem to think that the matter was reserved last year when she pledged that the Scottish Government would

“ensure that 100 per cent of homes and businesses across Scotland have access to superfast (30Mbps) broadband by 2021.”

That is an interesting promise to make if the matter is indeed reserved and thus out of her hands.

I am told that Banff and Buchan has an average download speed of about 6 megabits per second. Having conducted similar surveys to some of my colleagues, I have never heard of anyone who actually has anything like 6 megabits per second. They either have reasonably good coverage if they are reasonably close to a cabinet, with a speed somewhere between 10 and 24 megabits, or they have next to nothing. If I understand the arithmetic, it suggests that far more people have less than 2 megabits per second than have more than 10 megabits.

Many of my constituents can only dream of speeds as high as 6 megabits, never mind the USO of 10 megabits. My hometown of Turriff, which is the third largest town in the constituency, only recently got fibre to cabinet. In my case, being less than a kilometre from the cabinet brings me up to 10 megabits per second on average, but most of my constituents in the rural areas struggle to get speeds of even close to 2 megabits per second, assuming that they can get online at all. It is also worth noting that while the Scottish Government expect 95% of premises to have access to superfast broadband by the end of 2017, in Aberdeenshire, which takes in my constituency, Gordon and West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, it is predicted that around 11% will still not have access to superfast by that time.

The world is becoming more and more connected. If our communities and premises are not adequately connected, communities will fall further and further behind the rest of the country—indeed, the world, as has already been mentioned. An increasing number of important services, including Government and local government services, are moving online, sometimes exclusively, and with each such service the situation for my constituents gets worse.

Relatively recently, we talked about something called the internet of things. That is rapidly becoming more like the internet of everyone and everything, but sadly not for everyone: only for those with a decent connection. There is simply too much acceptance of the problem.