Jake Berry
Main Page: Jake Berry (Conservative - Rossendale and Darwen)
Albert Owen
Do I get an extra minute if I give way, Madam Deputy Speaker? If so, I will give way.
Jake Berry
I draw hon. Members’ attention to my declaration of interest as a property owner on the island of Ynys Môn. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that an island such as Anglesey would be a perfect place to roll out mobile broadband, given that Holy Island, which is just off the coast, is relatively flat with some high points? Have the Welsh Government considered using the European money to roll out mobile broadband to get to those hard-to-reach properties?
Albert Owen
It is good that I get the extra minute, and the hon. Gentleman has also covered a couple of pages of my speech. I am happy to defend and fight for his interests and those of his parents on the island.
The serious point is that we want the £129 million clawback to be used properly. The Welsh Government have offered grants of £1,000 to the 5% of difficult areas, £900 of which the Welsh Government provide from that pot of money and £100 of which comes from the customers and community groups that want the wireless connection. I urge the Minister, who is a very reasonable person, to look at such things rather than have a summit because, with the greatest of respect, summits are about talking and what my constituents want is action.
My constituents do not want to be in the slow lane. They do not want to be on the periphery when it comes to 21st-century technologies. I would have liked to see pilots in rural areas. Smart metering for gas and electricity is the next big issue for the country, but the providers are already saying that they cannot reach 100% of households. I want my constituents and constituents in other rural and peripheral areas to be first-class citizens in this country. They must have not only the same rights and responsibilities, but the same services. Rural areas need to compete with large towns, so we need 21st-century infrastructure. Those who say that the market can deliver should look at the mobile phone coverage in my area. It is very poor and patchy, and the market is not delivering. We want all the main players to work together to ensure that rural and peripheral areas get 100% attention and 100% broadband and mobile coverage.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) on securing this debate, which is hugely important for all Members of the House. It has been a very interesting debate, with Members demonstrating time after time how important the broadband connection is to them and their constituents. As we move towards the “not spot” summit, which I sincerely hope will happen because it will tackle an issue pertinent to all our constituents, I hope that the Minister will have in his mind two issues that I want to raise.
The first concerns the inability of rural businesses to get broadband even when they are relatively near to—within one or two miles of—a fibre-enabled cabinet. I was visited by someone from a new business on Broadhead Road in Edgworth in my constituency which had just secured United Utilities as a client. United Utilities is the only FTSE 100 business in the north-west, and a relatively small start-up contracting with a FTSE 100 company is a fantastic success story. Part of the business is laying ground infrastructure, such as drains, pipes and water mains, and United Utilities asked my constituent to do a 15-minute turnaround on some plans. Despite the fact that he is relatively near a fibre cabinet, it took him over an hour even to download the plans when they were sent to him, let alone comment on them, amend them and send them back, and that is putting his business at serious risk.
Another constituent works for a crowdfunding business, which is entirely online. Crowdfunding is becoming such an important way of financing businesses in our country that we have to find a way to make sure that they can grow and succeed throughout the north of England. On Dean Lane in Water, my constituent is unable to work from home despite being within a mile of a fibre-enabled box.
There has been a lot of criticism of Openreach today, but at this point I would like to praise Openreach and Superfast Lancashire because they are coming to do a roadshow in each of those locations in my constituency. They are looking at a nodal approach—I do not claim to know what that means—to see what can be done about connecting those two individuals. I hope that the “not spot” summit will ensure that the same approach is taken all over the country.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Does my constituency neighbour agree that one problem is that different authorities are carrying out different plans, and that they ought to work more closely for the benefit of those on the edges of constituencies?
Jake Berry
I could not agree more. My hon. Friend and I have worked very well on cross-border issues in Edenfield in my constituency which borders Ramsbottom in his constituency.
My final point is about the universal service. An Opposition Member made the point that in the 1990s we thought it was so important that people had universal access to a landline that we put it in legislation when we privatised British Telecom. We did more than that; we provided a social tariff, saying that those people on low incomes or receiving benefits could secure a landline at a lower rate because we believed that it was so important. Now, when we are considering universal service for broadband, is the time to ensure that there is a social tariff for those on low incomes to access broadband. That is not so that people can sit at home surfing the internet, booking holidays or watching catch-up TV; it is for their children. Most schools in my constituency now both set homework and ask for it to be submitted online, and £15 a month for line rental plus possibly another £10 to £15 a month for a broadband connection is too expensive for many households. We will entrench intergenerational deprivation, both digital and actual, if we do not find a way to enable those on low incomes to get connected.
Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)
I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) on securing this debate.
The variations stated in the motion exist in my constituency. Earlier this year, I was thrilled to learn from a survey conducted by uSwitch that Sandy Lane in Cannock was the street with the fastest broadband in the whole country. If people are looking for fast broadband, they know where to come—move to Cannock! I add a word of caution, however: although that is excellent news, it is unfortunately not the case that our broadband and mobile coverage is good for all residents and businesses across my constituency.
I was recently contacted by a resident of Fair Oaks in Birches Valley. Their property is served by the Rugeley exchange and a street cabinet, both of which have been upgraded to deliver fibre broadband. However, given the way in which the technology has been deployed, the property is too far from the enabled street cabinet for a cable to be connected—an issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey). That leaves a number of rural properties in the valley with no immediate hope of superfast broadband. They only have a hope if and when the next phase of upgrades takes place, and if their location is factored into plans.
The House can imagine my surprise when I went on to the Superfast Staffordshire website. It stated that the valley was enabled for superfast broadband, which was “available to order”. Well, it is not, nor is that included in future plans. We must ensure that such properties do not miss out. I noted from the website that Keys business park is not connected and that the time frames for connection have not been confirmed. Bluechipworld Sales and Marketing Ltd is a fascinating business in that business park, and I visited it only a couple of weeks ago. It designs and manufactures high-tech devices from its sites in Cannock and China. Its designers are employed and based in the UK—in Cannock—and, importantly, that gives young people career opportunities.
Jake Berry
My hon. Friend’s point about a high-tech company in her constituency creating employment is similar to the one that I made in relation to my constituency. Perhaps the Minister will say what vouchers could be made available for business customers, not just individuals, who want to bring high-tech engineering companies to our constituencies.
Amanda Milling
My hon. Friend makes a good point.
Broadband speeds are important for that technology business, because it can take four to six hours to transmit its designs to China. We rightly talk about productivity, and I am sure that hon. Members will agree that this is an example of why we desperately need to roll out superfast broadband quickly, efficiently and universally.
I welcome the motion, and I hope that residents and businesses across Cannock Chase, including in Birches Valley and Keys business park, will enjoy the broadband speeds that those on Sandy Lane in Cannock experience.
Chi Onwurah
Well, it has been a long time. Before entering Parliament in 2010 I spent 20 years as an electrical engineer building telecoms networks around the world. I confess to having had a geeky worry that my technical knowledge would suffer as part of the privilege of being elected to the House. The Government have been so ineffectual, however, that my technical understanding remains as relevant as ever. Ministers should be ashamed of that, because it is their failure.
The UK has the sixth largest economy in the world, and is a developed nation with aspirations to lead the digital world. It is a country where Government services are “digital by default”, yet we have heard from many speakers in all parts of the House about the dire state of our digital infrastructure. I am not going to repeat all the terrible tales that we have heard: 1.8 million homes that cannot get broadband; dial-up speeds; businesses unable to do business. The economic benefits of better digital infrastructure—or, in some cases, of any kind of digital infrastructure—have been emphasised. The UK’s productivity problem was mentioned, and it is one of the biggest challenges that our economy faces. We have the second worst productivity in the G7. Ministers contribute to the problem, with a lack of productivity when it comes to providing the digital infrastructure that this country needs. The Government’s own broadband impact study states:
“It is now widely accepted that the availability and adoption of affordable broadband plays an important role in increasing productivity”.
The Minister laughs, but this is serious for many of his MPs. Better infrastructure increases productivity by
“supporting the development of new, more efficient, business models, enabling business process re-engineering to improve the efficiency and management of labour intensive jobs, and enabling increased international trade and collaborative innovation”.
Many Members on both sides of the House have given examples of that. As the new Leader of the Opposition and the new shadow Chancellor told conference this year, at the heart of our forward-looking narrative will be plans for investing in the future, including “investment in fast broadband to support new high technology jobs”.
Jake Berry
Does the hon. Lady accept, with the thought of the new Leader of the Opposition in her mind, that the natural step after the renationalisation of the railways is the renationalisation of BT?
Chi Onwurah
It is possible, as the last Labour Government demonstrated, to have a telecoms network that includes competition if there is a strong regulator and a Government who are committed to ensuring that competition delivers services for consumers. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case.
The internet provides social benefits, as we have heard. Online shopping is often cheaper, and the internet opens up access to public and private services. It is not right that some people cannot access Government services for which they pay or, even worse, that they are penalised for not being able to access them online, whether they are farmers or people on benefits trying to sign on and do their job hunting online. The internet opens up a world of free education and is a window on the globe. It is absolutely ludicrous that the Government have not been able to provide what has become the fourth utility.
The Government attack the right to strike for working people, but they have effectively withdrawn their labour when it comes to superfast broadband. Underneath the polite tone of the motion, Members in all parts of the House know that anger is growing among their constituents, especially in rural areas. The truth is that it will take more than a summit to reverse a failure by the Government to deliver on their promises, which lacked ambition to begin with. When the Labour Government left office they left fully funded plans for basic broadband—[Interruption]; I am sorry, it is the truth—to be delivered in two years and superfast broadband to be delivered to 90% by 2017. The remaining 10% would be covered by mobile broadband.
Now we are falling further and further behind our competitors. Australia is aiming for 100 megabits for 93% of premises by 2021, and South Korea will have 1 gigabit by 2017, yet we do not have a target this decade for getting everyone online.
Instead, we have had five years of ad hoc funding announcements and vanity projects whenever the Chancellor has wanted to sweeten the latest round of punishing austerity—a series of disconnected policy initiatives that were never very ambitious, but that have suffered from delays nevertheless.
The crown jewel in all those projects—the £790-million rural superfast broadband programme—was handed entirely to one company because of a badly designed, monopoly-favouring procurement programme that has been panned by every Committee to have considered it in this House and the other place and criticised by anyone who has taken a passing interest in it. That is the fault not of BT, but of Ministers.
What we need from the Government is a vision for a market-led, future-proof, universal digital infrastructure. Ultimately, that means fibre going to premises and real investment. It will not come along on its own. Ministers need to set out a vision for our digital infrastructure. They need to tell us how we will get there and ensure that it happens. Instead, all we have is complacency and chutzpah. Demand in this debate has outstripped supply, as is the case with broadband in the UK. I urge hon. Members to remember the importance of digital skills and digital inclusion, as well as digital infrastructure. There are still 5 million households that have no access to the internet and 1 million more who do not feel confident using it.
The Government have no coherent strategy. There is a lack of vision and a staggering level of incompetence in implementation. There has been a super-slow crawl-out, rather than a roll-out, to just 2 million premises so far, with constant delays.