Rural Broadband

Greg Knight Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

This is a very oversubscribed subject, and we have only a short time. I am keen for all hon. Members present to intervene. Some 15 hon. Members have been in touch with me about that. I ask them to give me three or four minutes to get under way and then I will try to bring everyone in.

I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Minister very much. He came up to Nenthead in my constituency on what was a hairy day over the top of the Alston fell. He saw us install the new broadband network and launched our conference. In general, this is a very positive story. It is the beginning of a new story, but a very positive one. I thank also all the MPs here today. Incredible work is being done constituency by constituency. If there is a broader constitutional lesson from all this, it is about the role of Members of Parliament in driving forward superfast broadband.

I say a huge thank you also to the officials. We have had incredible support from Anton Draper in the Department for Communities and Local Government, from Mike Kiely and Robert Sullivan in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, from Alan Cook at Cumbria county council and from communities themselves. This is above all a story about community pressure and Government responding to it. Within the confines of Cumbria, there has been huge pressure from a diverse range of communities. The people and places include Libby Bateman from Kirkby Stephen, Miles Mandelson, who has constructed one of the most exciting superfast networks imaginable in Great Asby, Leith-Lyvennet Broadband and Northern Fells Broadband. They have all been pushing ahead on this issue.

There is a huge need, which I am sure all hon. Members will speak to, particularly for rural areas—for our economies above all. Isolation cripples our economies. As a group of MPs, we tend to have in our constituencies far more self-employed people than any other constituencies in Britain and far more people working from home. Broadband is essential for that, but also for public services such as health and education. It allows my neighbour with Parkinson’s disease, instead of making a four and a half hour round trip to Newcastle general hospital, to have a live video link to the consultant without leaving home. The same is true of distance education and learning.

The challenges, which again are not things I need to talk about at length today, are challenges of topography, scarce population and the amazing shifting sands of technology. Every time I talk to the Minister, a new person has emerged with a new and astonishing solution. I am thinking of point-to-point microwave links; the fact that one Minister is pushing satellite technology; cellular solutions; long-term evolution solutions; and, today, people talking about moving signals down electric wire.

[Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; I am sorry if I am a minute early according to his guidelines! If there is one message that we all want the Minister to take away from today’s debate, is it not this? Communities that are geographically isolated should not be allowed to become digitally isolated.

[Rory Stewart]

That is a fantastic point. Of course, the complexity of what the Government are dealing with is astonishing. It is not just topography or technology; it includes cost, legal issues such as European state aid regulations, and issues such as the spectrum auction, which I hope to come on to briefly.

May I make a little progress for another minute and a half before I take any more interventions? This project owes an enormous amount to ministerial leadership—not just that of the Minister, but of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—and has seen enormous progress to date. However, it is a revolution in methodology and procurement. People are having to push boundaries on procurement and methodology that would have been unimaginable 11 months previously. People are having to be much more flexible. Instead of going for big, framework, county council solutions, they are having to respond, often parish by parish, to very different technological solutions within a single area of 100 square miles. That involves risk. It involves generous investment by the Government. It involves piloting measures.

What does this mean? For the new policy, it means three lessons. We need to share the lessons from all the pilots much more effectively around the country. I hope that this is the beginning of a series of Westminster Hall debates—if anyone has the patience—in which we can take the lessons further. We need to look much more seriously at finance. Of course, there is great inspiration from the United States in the 1920s and ’30s, when a dedicated bank was set up for communities to electrify rural areas. The green investment bank is a good beginning for our Government in that direction. The big society bank is another good beginning. I would like to see finance facilities available specifically for parishes and communities to be able to move ahead with their own broadband.

The final issue is the rural spectrum auction. We talk a lot about broadband. We must think about mobile coverage. An Ofcom consultation is taking place at the moment. Ofcom is pushing only for 95% coverage for this spectrum. We need to shove it up from that, because 95% coverage will mean that most of the areas represented in this Chamber will not be covered. On those grounds, I will take my second intervention.