James Heappey
Main Page: James Heappey (Conservative - Wells)
Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) for helping to set up the all-party group on broadband and digital communication, which we chair together. He rightly said that neither of us was an expert in the field of technology, but along with colleagues in this House and the other place we are passionate about getting broadband rolled out across the country. It is important to remember that the group was set up in response to the incredible feedback we received during the election from people absolutely sick to death of not being able to get broadband. Somebody said to me in Somerset: “We have broadband apartheid”. It was possibly over the top, but I understood what they meant.
I wish to speak about the problems in my constituency and in Somerset more widely. In fact, three of us from Somerset are here, as my hon. Friends the Members for Wells (James Heappey) and for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) are also in their places. [Interruption.] Of course, I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Wells.
James Heappey (Wells) (Con)
Forgive me, I was not trying to intervene; I was merely indicating that our hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) was also present.
Mr Liddell-Grainger
I apologise. It was mentioned before that my hon. Friend is here, but I thought he had gone. So four out of five Somerset Members are here.
One of the big problems in Somerset is that we have tied ourselves up with Devon in Connecting Devon and Somerset. The Minister has been extremely helpful, but we are one of the few parts of Britain that does not have a phase 2 plan. The county councils—not the MPs—not only did not sign the agreement but leaked to the BBC the fact that they were not going to sign it before they told us, which left us in a difficult position. One problem now is that the Minister and his team are trying to arrange procurement through Europe so that we are not left behind. I believe the only other area of Britain that has not got 95% roll-out tied up is Scotland—I am sure one of its Members will correct me if I am wrong.
Places such as Exmoor will have to rely on wireless technology, as might places such as the Mendips and the Blackdowns, but that will not help when surrounding areas, in Somerton and Frome—get that in—and elsewhere, are missing out because we cannot guarantee the same roll-out across the whole area. In Exmoor, they will have to put up 50 masts, which is an enormous number for a national park to give permission for. Is it not better to work with BT—exasperated as some of us are with it—to get superfast cable out? It is not satisfactory just to go for satellite, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) said, or wireless. It is not the same. As my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness said, the technology is not up to it.
We are in a difficult position, because unless we roll out broadband across the United Kingdom, including in places in Scotland such as Inverclyde and elsewhere, people are going to get more and more disillusioned. In areas such as ours, where people depend on broadband if they want to work from home, we cannot get it. It is still quicker in parts of Somerset to send a letter than an email. In parts of Exmoor, people cannot get television without a Sky box. Does anyone want to put all their eggs into Mr Murdoch’s basket? The answer is no. So the situation is difficult right across the area.
The Minister has an extremely good team in the Department—I know because I have met them—helping with procurement in Somerset. Chris Thompson, who heads that team, is first rate. We need to take this further. The time allocated for this debate is not adequate—three or four minutes per speech is not enough to get the message across. Could we continue the debate at another time, either through the Backbench Business Committee or in Government time?
Will the Minister announce that his team will help the areas in difficulty? He now helpfully sends out his monthly bulletin, which is extremely good and gratefully received, but places such as Devon and Somerset are stuck, partly owing to the incompetence of councillors—I will not mention names, unfortunately, but he knows who I am talking about—and partly because people are not prepared to take this seriously. I therefore urge him to announce today that his team will help these places. We have heard from places such as Inverclyde. There is no difference between Inverclyde and Somerset and Devon. We are all in the same boat, and it is going down, and we have certainly lost the paddle.
James Heappey (Wells) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) on securing this debate and on all his hard and well-informed work on this subject. I also congratulate the Minister on indulging my fairly regular correspondence on these matters and replying promptly and thoroughly every time.
I also welcome the work of the Connecting Devon and Somerset programme, which for all its faults has accelerated its work over the summer, and ever more homes are now coming online not only in my constituency but across those counties. I am encouraged by the Minister’s comment in his letter to me last week suggesting that phase one will reach 82% coverage in my constituency, but that clearly means there is a great deal left to do in phases two and three, and I wish to make some points on those phases.
First, there is a belief that there is an inherent flaw in the fibre-to-the-cabinet model that is being rolled out. Across the Wells constituency, and I suspect in similar constituencies across the country, as cabinets go live there are large numbers of properties—indeed, whole villages—that do not benefit from the upgrade of the cabinet because the run of copper from the cabinet to the villages or houses is too long. I encourage BT and the programmes across the country, particularly Connecting Devon and Somerset, urgently to embrace the fibre-to-the-remote-node solution so that fibre can be taken much further into those villages and premises can benefit.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making some very good points, and the key one is about BT and the question of competition, which was amply made from the Opposition Benches today. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to see more competition, certainly in respect of BT?
James Heappey
I very much agree. It has been suggested to me by people whose analysis I have come to trust that the fibre-to-the-cabinet model suits BT and it is therefore rather convenient that Openreach should be pursuing that model. It seems to me that if Openreach were not a part of the BT group and was completely independent it may be free to pursue other models and technologies that might work just as well for other service providers and therefore, crucially, deliver more competition in those communities.
There is an urgent need for transparency. According to statistics provided by Ofcom, the Wells constituency is ranked 593rd out of the 650 constituencies represented in this House for broadband coverage of 24 megabits per second or better. The statistics show that coverage in my constituency is 43%, but in the course of my correspondence with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport the Department has suggested that the constituency has 62% coverage. That lack of clarity and certainty over the state of the roll-out is very worrying as we go cabinet by cabinet, village by village and indeed house by house to ensure that every single premises, be it domestic or commercial, is connected. I cannot believe that the only way to get a snapshot of the coverage in our constituencies is to provide the electoral roll to the programme so that it can examine every single house. There must be a better way of giving us the data we require.
We are talking today about “not spots”, and my concern is that they relate not simply to broadband but to mobile coverage, too. As the industry moves towards bundling, whereby the providers of television, mobile, broadband and landline services will provide bundled packages, the difference between the haves and the have-nots will become ever more stark. We therefore need to future-proof the solution that we are delivering, and to ensure that, across the country, superfast broadband and genuinely decent mobile coverage—ideally with 3G as its benchmark—are achieved sooner rather than later. I very much welcome the fact that the aim of this debate is to call for a “not spot” summit. I simply ask that we do not hold that summit until all of us are equipped with the data we need to contribute to it properly on behalf of our constituents.
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.