Shared Rural Network Implementation

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the implementation of the Shared Rural Network.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Dame Maria. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I support the shared rural network, which aims to increase 4G coverage from 91% now to 95% of the UK landmass by 2025, and to ensure that there is coverage by all providers of 84% of the area by the same date. The Government are investing £0.5 billion in new masts in total notspot areas, which is very welcome, and the industry is spending about the same on ensuring that rural areas now covered only by one provider—partial notspots—get a signal from all providers by that date. None the less, there are concerns that roll-out is not progressing as quickly as we would like. The purpose of today’s debate is to ask the Minister to consider further steps to ensure that the objectives are achieved and that our constituents get the mobile signal they need and deserve.

Improved rural coverage for everyone is important for all sorts of reasons. First, it enables people to work from home in the modern economy, increasing job opportunities and business productivity. The rural region, accounting for about 20% of Britain, is one of the least productive economic areas of the whole country. One fifth of our people live in rural areas, and we want to give them every opportunity they can to be productive and to access the job opportunities they need. Where I live, lots of young people move away to access better job opportunities in cities. Our countryside is becoming populated primarily by retired people, and while we love them, we could do with some younger people as well to keep our schools open and communities thriving.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that in some rural areas—I am thinking particularly of Mordon and Killerby in my Sedgefield constituency—people move away from villages not only because they cannot get broadband, but because transport is a problem? With no transport options, they desperately need broadband to be there.

[Helen Morgan]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman entirely. We have spoken about public transport a lot, which is related to this problem. In rural areas like ours, when people are working they are often not stationary in an office, but moving around the area. A plumber or an agricultural worker relies on the mobile signal to operate their business on a daily basis. They need the mobile signal to work wherever they are, not just in their home. That is a key point that I will return to.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing forward this important debate. I apologise to you, Dame Maria, and to the hon. Lady, as I cannot be here that long—I have to chair a committee meeting at 5 o’clock. We have seen massive progress in rural broadband across the whole of the United Kingdom. Through the confidence and supply agreement, the Democratic Unionist party secured a deal with the Conservative party for £200 million for this very purpose in Northern Ireland. Moving forward, while 4G might be the commitment of the shared rural network, what we need now is 5G. Does the hon. Lady agree that progress has to match technological advances?

[Helen Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right that progress in rural areas is so slow that we end up with yesterday’s technology. I will come on to that towards the end of my speech. The roll-out of broadband and Project Gigabit in North Shropshire is very welcome, but the mobile signal is extremely important.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a good start on her speech, but there are examples of positive development across the country. In Devon, for instance, we have reconstituted Connecting Devon and Somerset. It has worked extremely well: in the last four years, we have gone from about 84% connectivity up into the high nineties percentile. That modern technology is also following suit. There are pretty good examples of where the private sector and public sector—Devon County Council—have done extraordinary work to make sure we are reaching the hard-to-reach areas, eliminating the notspots and ensuring connectivity for all. It is not a complete tale of woe.

[Helen Morgan]

I am pleased to hear that it is going well. Ensuring that we get to that stage across the country is what I hope this debate will achieve.

A survey for the Country Land and Business Association found that 80% of rural business owners said that improved connectivity would be the single largest improvement to their business. Mobile phones have been cited as the default back-up option for people when the copper landline network is switched off in a power cut. We are probably ultra-sensitive to that after the last couple of weeks, when people have been without power for extended periods. It is entirely right that electricity companies get power back on in urban areas sooner, because that is where the greatest number of people need to be connected, but we also need to ensure that the back-up option for rural people works, and that is the mobile phone signal.

It is important that people have a choice of provider to ensure that they have mobile connection when they need it. Interestingly, respondents to a survey conducted by Building Digital UK cited poor mobile coverage as a major factor exacerbating poor outcomes from agricultural injuries. That is vital in a very rural constituency where there is a large number of agricultural workers and where a couple of years ago there were several combine harvester fires. It is really important that people can call 999 when they need to, or call an ambulance if they have suffered an accident anywhere in a rural area.

Mobile coverage is also one of the top issues faced by constituents. I ran a series of open meetings over the summer, and constituents were genuinely angry that they could not use the same mobile signal at home as at work. It caused them huge problems—for example, they could not do simple things like phoning home to get someone to pick up their kids from school if they were running late. There was a real impact on people’s daily life from not being able to access the same mobile phone signal wherever they went in their local area.

It is important to note that partial notspots, which are the main issue where I live, effectively mean that people have only one choice of provider, so we are not seeing the competitive market that our urban counterparts have when they are choosing who to buy their phone or SIM from.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

My rural constituency of North Norfolk has exactly the same problems with notspots. One of the fundamental problems seems to be the planning process, in which planners or the mobile phone companies and their agents put together applications for completely inappropriate locations. They get turned down by the local community and the local planning authority, not because local people do not want a mobile phone signal but because they do not want a lattice structure of 50 metres in an area of outstanding natural beauty. How can we get to a situation in which planning applications can be made and approved, and not opposed all the time?

[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.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

As the hon. Lady may be aware from her constituency—it is the case in my constituency and rural parts of Suffolk—church towers are often used to support broadband masts. To speed up the roll-out of this programme, I wonder whether something could be done with planning policy nationally to give a presumption in support of broadband masts being put into church towers where there is a desire to do so.

[Helen Morgan]

Suffolk is famous for its spectacular medieval church towers. We are perhaps not so well blessed with those structures in North Shropshire, but I think it is a fair point. Easing the planning process is something that definitely should be considered.

Apart from all the logistical issues, the mobile network operators failed to reach an agreement with EE to share their existing equipment. The reason that EE has achieved its objectives so far in advance is because it has an extensive network of existing equipment. This is a commercial issue, because this was a commercial investment. I guess it depends on one’s point of view whether EE was asking for too much money or whether the other operators were not offering a sensible amount, but the reality is that they have failed to reach an agreement. That means that the roll-out by the other three mobile network operators is delayed, and they are potentially building masts where they do not need to.

It is also worth noting that the difficulty of the planning process means that not a single mast has yet been built for the total notspots. The Minister will correct me if my data is out of date and I am wrong about that, but according to the briefing I have seen, that is the case. Masts are going up in the wilder areas using public money.

There are lots of issues. We have a commercial failure to share equipment. We have a planning problem. We know everybody would benefit, so let us have a look at what the potential solution could be. Infrastructure sharing is absolutely key. We should be looking at how we can ensure that the commercial operators do better on that front.

I also want to speak about the potential solution of rural roaming. Rural roaming is what happens when we travel to the continent, or indeed anywhere in the world. Our phone links up to the signal that it can find, and we go about our daily business without noticing what we are connected to.

The industry strongly opposes the idea of rural roaming. It says that it is technically inferior; phones would have a shorter battery life because they are seeking a signal. Obviously, rural roaming does not deal with total notspots where there is no mast to produce a signal for phones to connect to. The industry also says that rural roaming would undermine future investment in the network, which is obviously critical, particularly because the technology moves on all the time, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said.

Having said all that, there is support for rural roaming. A 2019 report by the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs Committee said that it would be a good solution, because it could be implemented in under 18 months and would give between 90% and 95% landmass coverage, which is comparable to the aim of the shared rural network. The Country Land and Business Association has described rural roaming as a common-sense solution, and I can assure the House that there would be a huge amount of support for it among my constituents in North Shropshire. Since that EFRA Committee report in 2019, the shared rural network has been signed up to, but there are significant concerns about the speed of the roll-out, and there is no plan to go further and provide 5G coverage, including stand-alone 5G coverage, in the countryside.

In conclusion, I cannot emphasise enough the importance of having better data when we assess the success of the roll-out of the shared rural network, because there is a real risk that notional targets will be met without the consumer experience being improved. People in North Shropshire and other constituencies do not care whether a map shows that they have coverage. They will be worried sick if their mum goes into hospital, and no one can get in touch with them because they are in a part of the constituency that the phone signal does not reach.

Will the Government consider not only making sure that the data is improved, but taking further steps to improve areas that have partial notspots by requiring mobile network operators to share their equipment more effectively? They should come to an arrangement whereby that can be done, so that the number of masts and the planning process are not major factors in slowing up the roll-out of the shared rural network. If that cannot be done, will the Minister consider requiring the industry to provide rural roaming? As we often say, if it is not acceptable for people in Birmingham to have only one choice of mobile network provider, it is not acceptable for people in Shropshire.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Morgan]

I thank the shadow Minister, the Minister, the SNP spokesperson and all right hon. and hon. Members for contributing to our debate on this important issue. I also thank the Library for producing an excellent briefing, and all the people in the industry—the mobile network operators, the industry organisations, the Country Land and Business Association and the Rural Services Network—for helping me to pull together the necessary information. I am extremely grateful to them all.

I will pick up with the Minister the issues of data, equipment sharing and rural roaming, because they are extremely important. Indeed, my private Member’s Bill on the subject is due to be debated on Friday, and I am sure we will pick things up again then.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the implementation of the Shared Rural Network.