Rural Broadband

James Heappey Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[James Heappey (Wells) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on securing this debate and introducing it in his inimitable style. He is surely emerging as a champion for agriculture and rural communities across the country. It would be churlish not to start by applauding the success of the phase 1 roll-out. It got off to a slow start in my county of Somerset, but in the past few months a satisfying number of villages have been connected each month. However, there are three key issues connected to phase 1.

First, there is a lack of awareness that cabinets have gone live, which means that the uptake in many places has been disappointingly low. Does the Minister have some ideas, or even some resources, to assist in the promotion of cabinets that have gone live so that there can be better uptake?

Secondly, it is not only farms and isolated hamlets that are at the end of long lines. In many linear villages in Somerset where the cabinet is in the middle, homes that are very much in the village suffer from being on the end of a long line. Indeed, the same is true of homes within the larger towns in my constituency, particularly Wells, where properties are connected directly to the exchange. It is hugely frustrating for people who live in a concentration of premises that have been connected and that have superfast broadband when, because they are connected directly to the exchange or because they are on the end of a long line, they do not have the connection that their neighbours have. We should prioritise such people when identifying who we address in phase 2 or phase 3.

Finally, there is a group of people for whom I feel very deeply: the people who live within the areas that were grabbed by BT for commercial roll-out but who BT has not yet got round to delivering. Those people live in villages just on the edge of a town. When BT’s eyes were bigger than its stomach, it said, “We’ll take that.” Villages all around them have since been helped by the state aid programme, but they are still waiting. Will the Minister consider imposing a time limit on BT for the commercial upgrade of cabinets? If BT fails to do so within that time, it should be made to forfeit so that the village can benefit from the state aid programme that is unwinding around it.

Looking at what comes next, I have a parochial plea. The Minister is well aware of the collapse of the phase 2 negotiations between Connecting Devon and Somerset and BT. There is no doubt that that has caused concern locally. Despite my earlier welcome for the acceleration of the process over the past couple of months, we should not ignore the danger that, with the phase 2 contracts not having been signed, there is a real likelihood that the progress in Devon and Somerset will plateau, which would be hugely frustrating for homeowners and businesses alike. Will the Minister consider imposing a deadline on Devon County Council and Somerset County Council for the negotiation of the phase 2 contracts?

In the process of working out what is in phase 2, we should identify what is left. My final plea to the Minister is, when we know what is left because it has not been included in phase 2, let us be bold and get on with connecting them concurrently. There is no reason to wait to connect the final 5% sequentially after the completion of phase 2. We know what is left, so let us do it at the same time.

The Minister is right to shout about the success of this programme. It is a huge state aid project and a real investment by this Government in our country’s future, but the frustration grows in rural areas every time we are lapped by those in the cities. The reality is that, every time the cities get something more—dial-up, broadband, superfast, ultrafast, 3G, 4G and 5G—we are left even further behind. Every time we are lapped, the frustration grows, the productivity gap widens, the competitiveness advantage becomes more stark and the sense of isolation becomes more acute. We must not rest on our laurels. We must accelerate into the final 5% to make absolutely sure that no community in Somerset, or anywhere else in the country, is left behind.