Digital Infrastructure, Connectivity and Accessibility

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to speak in this debate and I really thank the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) for bringing it to us. I cannot quite remember the pizza wheel of doom, but it is probably that I have not heard that expression since I last used Yahoo.

If I go onto doorsteps in North Norfolk, I can guarantee that one of the most common issues that my residents want to talk about is broadband or their mobile phone reception—or lack of it. In the 21st century, it is rather surprising that we continually talk about this issue; we do so time and again. It should be an absolute given than people are entitled to a decent mobile phone reception and decent broadband speed wherever they live. I fully recognise that the Government are making great strides to ensure that no area of the country is left behind to suffer from poor speeds, but in May, the Ofcom report revealed that the average home broadband speed was just 64 Mbps. In my constituency of North Norfolk, the average speed was just 35.7 Mbps, making it one of the slowest areas in the country. That is just about half the national average, which is just not good enough.

I regularly try to help my constituents with the universal service obligation offering. The problem is not that the coverage is lacking per se—actually it is pretty good. Around 95% of people get a connection in my constituency, but the last 5%, which we hear about so many times in this place, just seems not to be able to be helped at a reasonable cost. I regularly get costs coming back at around £50,000, which, as we know, our vouchers do not quite stretch to. I welcome the fact that the Minister is aware of this problem and is trying to solve it. If I can make a small ask, can some of that £5 billion—like the vaccine that I asked for the other week—come to North Norfolk?

Good broadband and mobile signal is fundamental in our post-covid recovery and we have heard that many times today. There are many people who want to move out of the cities and come to live in beautiful locations such as where I am from. What holds them back time and again is wanting to be able to run their business from home, get that speed and perhaps a service business and they need that reliable broadband. What is even more of a potential issue is a decent mobile reception. I would like to get a decent mobile reception before we even get 4G or 5G in North Norfolk please. As we have heard before, the shared rural network is absolutely imperative. We have got to have that. If we get it right, what that has the capacity to do is to supersede any fixed line broadband scenario.

If I had a top ask of the Minister, it would be just how do we get that very last 5% covered across all parts of the country, and particularly to rural areas such as mine, that need that adequate broadband connection. How do we make it cost-effective? For everybody back in my patch, I say, yes, we want 4G and 5G but we also want a reliable mobile signal that spans the entire area, and, certainly, we must bring forward the shared rural network as fast as we can in the next few years.