Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

I am conscious that I am the last Back-Bench speaker in the debate, and I see a number of hon. Members who have shown a late curiosity in it over the past few minutes, so I will try to keep my remarks as pithy as I possibly can.

I will confine my contribution to part 2 of the Bill, on the changes to the electronic communications code and, in particular, the Government’s measures to improve digital connectivity and meet their target of delivering gigabit-capable broadband to 85% of UK premises by 2025. I think it is fair to say that we have made real strides in that direction, underpinned by the universal service obligation. Locally, we have Connecting Cheshire, the BDUK delivery partner, working to ensure that that is being met; the gigabit broadband voucher scheme, which I know many of my constituents have taken advantage of; and more recently the addition of Cheshire to Project Gigabit, which will hopefully mean that we secure more of the significant funding that has been committed to that project.

I argue that Eddisbury is a good test bed from which to judge the success of the Government’s commitment. It is the 92nd largest constituency geographically, and 57.9% of it is classed as rural. It is 599th out of 650 constituencies for superfast broadband coverage. Some 23.5% of my constituents are aged 65 and over, against the national average of 18.6%. As we know, isolation is an issue for that age group, and therefore digital connectivity is particularly crucial. We also have a high number of small businesses scattered across the constituency. Some are run by people from their home, not least the many farmers in Eddisbury, or from a local commercial building, so the roll-out of gigabit-capable broadband is fundamental to the whole of my constituency and the local economy moving forward.

For all those local residents and businesses, reliable and resilient broadband and mobile coverage of a more than decent speed has become ever more essential, accelerated, as we know, by the covid pandemic. Simply put, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) said, it is now one of life’s necessary utilities. It is therefore pleasing to report that in Eddisbury we have seen significant improvements in our broadband infrastructure. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), who did some sterling work to try to make those figures move in a very positive direction. We now have 89.7% of premises with superfast broadband availability. Some 56.2% are gigabit capable, which is up 15% in the last year alone, and I think up from just 7% in 2018.

However, as we have heard, there is still much to do, particularly in the many villages and rural areas of south Cheshire. For example, 9.4% of premises in Eddisbury receive broadband speeds of under 10 megabits per second, compared with 6.4% across the whole of the north-west. Since my election in December 2019, I and my staff have dealt with more than 100 cases of poor connectivity raised by frustrated constituents. The local survey that we carried out on the issue revealed that 55% of those who took part felt that their broadband provider did not meet the level of internet speeds that it had advertised in its plan. Respondents also fed back frustration about the real difficulty, and exasperating delay, in reaching agreements that allow for fibre cables to be laid across private land to connect properties—a frustration that the Bill seeks to address.

To give the House a short local example, there are 12 properties in a semi-rural location that sit between two areas where fibre has already been installed. Their broadband is delivered through copper telephone lines at very slow speeds of between 1 megabit and 5 megabits per second. In 2019, BT Openreach considered installing fibre as part of a wider project in the local area, but subsequently withdrew because of the incessant delays in obtaining wayleaves. To compound the problem, Openreach has estimated the cost of installing fibre via trench in fields adjacent to the lane that the properties are located on to be £55,000—a sum well beyond the amount that could be raised through the gigabit voucher scheme. In any event, both BT Openreach and Connecting Cheshire have, for some as yet unexplained reason, deemed that the 12 properties are not eligible for the vouchers. As a consequence, we have a stalemate. My team and I are doing all that we can to unlock the impasse, including on potential top-up funding and inclusion in the Airband project. I ask the Minister what assistance she and her team may be able to provide to ensure that those in the properties get the broadband that they want, although it may well be that without this legislation a solution may be a long way down the track.

I support the proposed reforms to the electronic communications code that include the introduction of a faster procedure to allow telecom operators to get temporary rights to access and install infrastructure on land, as well as the sharing of equipment as part of any upgrade. In doing so, I am of course mindful of, and have sympathy with, the concerns raised by a number of Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie), off the back of the 2017 reforms that resulted, in some cases, in reductions in rents for hosting infrastructure, which can affect the resolution timeframe.

As we have heard, those issues were not revisited in the 2021 consultation, and I think that many of us would like some reassurance from the Minister that the Government will continue to monitor the issues of both valuation and dispute resolution in order to understand the consequences of the changes in the code arrangements. That will ensure that my landowner constituents feel they are getting the right value for their commitment, while my local residents can expect to have their gigabit broadband as quickly as possible.

Overall, this is an important Bill, bringing about the ever more pressing digital connection of our entire country. In Eddisbury we are taking significant steps in that direction, but there remains much more to do, and to that that end—with the help of the Bill— I will continue to do all I can to make it happen.