Phone and Broadband Coverage (Herefordshire)

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

We can commence the debate, as the Minister and the Member whose debate it is are in position. If hon. Members intervene on Mr Norman, could they please be brief, as this is a half-hour debate?

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship or chairladyship, Mrs Main.

As colleagues will understand, this is a very serious issue that affects vast numbers of our constituents. This is only a short debate, but I see from the serried ranks of Conservative MPs and, sadly, the absence of Labour MPs that at least on one side of the House, this is a matter of great importance. I will be delighted to take interventions, as Mrs Main said, but let me make some progress first, and then I will invite colleagues to express their views.

I came to this subject because I was concerned about the combined effects of a bad mobile signal, a bad broadband signal and a phone line that is not working well. We see that in Herefordshire. Just a few weeks ago, I surveyed more than 1,100 people living and working in my constituency on the issue of mobile not spots and—

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

On that subject, will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jesse Norman]

That is not quite what I was talking about. [Interruption.]

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Jesse Norman]

If my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) will let me continue, I will flag up when I am ready for the odd intervention or two.

The overwhelming majority of the constituents whom I surveyed thought that this was a serious concern and were in favour of action to tackle partial mobile phone not spots. We welcome the work that has been done on that by the Department so far. The situation is exactly the same for businesses. When Herefordshire’s sustainable food and tourism partnership surveyed its members, 97.8% responded to say that they had specific concerns and problems.

However, this is just part of a bigger picture. The Government need to look not merely at the effects of bad mobile and broadband coverage individually, but at their compounded effect. That is further magnified where there are insecure energy supplies, as in rural areas such as mine.

A mobile phone service is a lifeline for many people in rural areas, especially as BT telephone boxes are being withdrawn. Utilities, emergency services, telemedicine, delivery companies and tourists all require and rely on mobile and wi-fi coverage. However, it is common for my constituents to have download speeds of 400 kilobits per second and upload speeds of 120k—barely better than the old 56k connection—on aluminium phone lines, which prevent any kind of easy upgrade.

Welsh Water has told me that bad mobile coverage affects

“our speed of response and efficiency”

in attempting to serve tens of thousands of local people.

Kingstone surgery in my constituency has such a bad signal that if BT Openreach does not make urgent repairs, it will be unable to upgrade its software, potentially affecting 4,200 patients.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

One of the issues that my hon. Friend is rightly exploring affects both our areas. Much of the rural heartland that we represent cannot be reached by the outreach that BT is doing, and we will need extra funding for some of our areas. I expect that that is exactly what he is homing in on. Across Exmoor, Dartmoor and those places, we will need that funding, I would have thought.

[Jesse Norman]

I think that is true. It is not clear that an enormous amount of extra money is required, but it does have to be targeted at areas that suffer that compounded effect.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on obtaining the debate, and may I join him in pressing for a longer debate? Clearly, the attendance at this debate shows that we need that. May I also echo my hon. Friend’s words about not spots? The Government are doing a great job nationally of rolling out 90% mobile and broadband coverage, but for the 10%, which is disproportionately in rural areas, we will need further help.

[Jesse Norman]

I thank my hon. Friend for those remarks, with which I concur. I would go further and suggest to colleagues that the ability to communicate is a fundamental freedom, protected in law, which underlies the very basis of human well-being and prosperity. In this digital age, people who are prevented from being able to use a phone or personal computer are in effect being stifled or gagged. They must be allowed the ability to send and receive information without impediment. In Herefordshire, it is not a matter of money; the system just is not available at any price, or at least at any price short of a satellite uplink.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. The situation is every bit as bad as he says, because if we cannot get proper broadband, we cannot get the boost to the mobile phone signal, either, so we are caught in a forked stick.

[Jesse Norman]

I absolutely concur with that, too. The point is that the Government need to take this seriously, not only as a matter of policy but as a matter of basic humanity and responsiveness to deep social needs.

Let me summarise the situation in Herefordshire. I will start with the mobile side. We have the fourth lowest overall population density in England and the greatest proportion of its population living in “very sparse” areas of any local authority in England. About 5% of Herefordshire by geographic area has no mobile phone coverage at all. As for partial not spots, according to Ofcom’s UK mobile services data for the year before last, nearly 40% of Herefordshire’s geographical area can receive a signal only from one or two operators. That is the highest incidence of partial not spots in England.

That directly damages public services. I mentioned Welsh Water. Even the Royal National College for the Blind, based in Hereford city, has said that its staff struggle to get a mobile signal when assisting their blind and partially sighted students. Everyone in this Chamber would agree that that is absolutely unacceptable.

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend’s constituents in Herefordshire are as frustrated as mine in Nottinghamshire. The Government spent an enormous amount of money advertising the fact that broadband is coming, so when people find themselves in a not spot, that almost adds to the frustration that they feel.

[Jesse Norman]

That is certainly true. It is known in the literature as the tunnel effect. If we are sitting in a queue in a tunnel and the lane next to us starts moving, our initial feeling is optimism. If that lane then continues to move and we do not, that optimism can quickly turn to social frustration. I think that that is what we have seen in this case.

There are bright spots. I do not want to discourage colleagues from recognising that. We now have digital exchanges in Hereford city. We have a 3G femtocell in the village of Ewyas Harold. That just shows the power of this technology when it can be properly rolled out, because the people there are delighted with the progress. However, it has been extraordinarily difficult to achieve any real change.

The mobile infrastructure project, which the Department has very wisely and interestingly rolled out, is a case in point. When the sites to benefit from it were first announced, in July 2013, the ambition was for them to be acquired and built by 2015. That has now slipped to spring 2016. Ten sites were identified in the county of Herefordshire. To date, only two sites in the country—forget the county—have been delivered. That illustrates how difficult it is to achieve change.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share the view of one or two of the mobile phone companies that the market has almost become too competitive, and that providers are being forced into the densely populated areas to chase a decreasing margin, which means that rural areas suffer?

[Jesse Norman]

That is an interesting line of thought, which I have not heard of. I wish it could be said that providers were competing for the custom of my constituents, but at the moment they are not making themselves available in any degree at all in many areas, which is why we have so many partial not spots. In any case, the mobile infrastructure project, which is such a worthwhile potential scheme, only targets basic 2G services. Why can we not put 3G and 4G services on those masts to provide a cost-effective universal broadband service?

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

May I bring the attention of my hon. Friend and the Minister to a further, more fundamental problem? Before we have even entered the next stage of roll-out, we in Cumbria already face a heartbreaking problem. Even with plans in place from the county council and BT to roll out, it looks as though inflexibility in extending funding will mean that we may not be able to push beyond March to September, and we may end up with £3 million unspent. There needs to be a big push in Herefordshire to ensure flexibility in funding. Without that, even the existing plans will fail.

[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful for that advice. On the fixed line side, the situation is almost as bad. I was delighted when, in the company of the Minister, we had a great summit in Herefordshire in July 2010 and shortly thereafter won one of the first four fast broadband pilots. That was a great moment for the county. I know that the Minister—on whose growing beard I congratulate him; he has succeeded in the beard-anuary bet—has been tireless in his work on the project, as has Herefordshire council. The whole thing has been delayed by the need to get EU clearances, by slow procurement and by very slow implementation by BT. As a result, my county is still, nearly five years later, one of the very worst places in the UK for fixed line internet speeds.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Dorset has a problem similar to that in Herefordshire. In the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, we took evidence the other day from a senior director from BT, and from listening to him or reading the transcript we get the impression that all is dandy. Will the Minister put more pressure on BT to meet those targets? If we listen to BT, those targets are going to be met, but clearly they are not.

[Jesse Norman]

That is unfortunately true. BT lives in a Pollyanna-ish world in which all is for the best in this best of all possible internet worlds, but that is simply not the case in the real world. The truth of the matter is that more than half the wards in Herefordshire are in the bottom 25% of England and Wales for average download speed, and only one ward in the entire county is in the top half. House of Commons Library analysis shows that rural village wards in Herefordshire have substantially slower broadband speeds than average, which makes it difficult or impossible to use voice over internet as a substitute for the mobile phone signal that nobody receives in any case. Even some commercial premises in Hereford that were recently upgraded to digital exchanges do not have decent broadband coverage, which is simply unacceptable and a great depressant on local economic activity.

[Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)]

As we can see from the number of hon. Members present, that is not simply a problem in Herefordshire. Three of my constituents, Mark Dixon, John Ballantyne and John Gannon, have complained about inadequate broadband coverage in rural areas. Surely the Minister should address the wider issue of ensuring that there is superfast broadband to all homes throughout the United Kingdom.

[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that remark. If I listed all my constituents who are affected, it would take a full day and a half of debate. Difficulties with reliable mobile coverage have been compounded by poor service from BT Openreach. Its remit as a non-customer-facing organisation causes enormous problems for my constituents. It is nearly impossible for them, or even for my staff, to get hold of people at Openreach. It takes too long to get one of its engineers to site, and they are often unprepared for the challenges of work in rural locations. It is difficult even to get in touch with Openreach, because there is no mobile signal in the areas from which one might seek to contact it. In addition, no effort seems to be made to prioritise customers who might be vulnerable because of age, disability or the sheer remoteness of their homes.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I praise my hon. Friend for the timeliness of the debate. Does he agree that extreme weather conditions such as floods, ice and snow highlight the importance of good broadband and mobile phone coverage? In the last week, my rural communities in Marsden, Hade Edge, Scholes, Cinderhills, Wooldale, Golcar and many more places were left isolated because of the questionable gritting policy of my local Labour-run Kirklees council. My constituents really need good broadband and mobile phone coverage.

[Jesse Norman]

It is a shame that literally no Opposition Members, let alone a Front-Bench spokesman, have attended the debate. I absolutely concur with the issues that my hon. Friend has raised. Constituents of mine have pointed out that they have been unable to contact the emergency services in the case of road traffic accidents and emergencies because they cannot get a mobile signal. There is a serious issue about allowing the emergency services to do their work.

What is to be done? I entirely reject, as colleagues will have heard, the argument that mobile phone coverage is a luxury, or that extending it should not be a concern of Government. I am delighted that that idea has been rightly rejected by Ministers for the nonsense that it is. Mobile coverage is absolutely essential to our constituents’ economic and social well-being. As a practical matter, they have no real economic power to secure parity of treatment. Someone who lives in a partial not spot has no place to go. They cannot secure the coverage that they need, and they have no alternative that might give them any economic leverage. On the contrary, the status quo raises serious questions about the effectiveness of competition in the market for mobile phone services in many parts of the country.

I absolutely welcome the initiative of the Secretary of State in this area and the recent agreement reached by Government and the mobile network operators. I wish that they would take that a step further and press for wider roaming rights for our constituents. Areas such as Herefordshire with multiple communications problems should be prioritised for improved coverage in a manner that follows local needs, not industry lobbying.

I will seek a full debate on the Floor of the House of Commons on those issues. I will encourage all my colleagues who are present today, and the dozens of others who have expressed an interest in the matter, to come along and take part in that debate. I want to cover three or four specific issues in that debate: first, a full understanding by Government of the nature of the problem, namely the combined effects of poor mobile, broadband and voice coverage; secondly, the specific performance of BT Openreach as a monopoly supplier of network infrastructure, and its manifest inadequacies; thirdly, recognition by Government that failure of phone or electricity is more serious where mobile coverage is patchy, so BT Openreach and the utility companies should prioritise repairs to such areas; and, finally, I suggest that Ofcom needs to look at service contracts. Mobile customers who sign such contracts and find that their connection is much worse than expected should be able to leave them early and on non-punitive terms. [Interruption.] On that basis, and with a welcome to Labour colleagues who have just entered the Chamber, I conclude my remarks.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, I point out that we will finish at 16.52. On a point of clarification, although the hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct to say that there were no Labour Members present during the debate, it is not appropriate for a Labour shadow Minister to be here.

[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful for the correction, Mrs Main. Thank you very much indeed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

I do not really know how to answer that point. On the one hand, one hon. Member criticises me for putting adverts in newspapers to encourage the take-up of superfast broadband; on the other, another hon. Member asks me to do more to encourage it. We cannot order people to take up superfast broadband, but we can tell them that it is here. We can also make the point that we have some of the cheapest superfast broadband to be found anywhere, not only in Europe but around the world. I am used to hearing people say, as I am sure my hon. Friends are, that they can access much better broadband when they go to their holiday villa or the like, but what they do not say is how much it costs to access it. We have some of the cheapest broadband.

[Jesse Norman]

The Minister has talked about the third phase of the Department’s plans. Can he spend a second or two talking further about that? Also, does he recognise the point about the compounded effects of lack of service, and might that justify an allocation of more funding in the third round to rural areas such as the ones we have described?

[Mr Vaizey]

To put phase 3 in context, during phase 1 we put £500 million on the table, along with local authorities and BT Openreach. That figure rose to £1.2 billion. We intend to reach 4 million premises; we have already reached 1.2 million, and will shortly have reached 1.5 million. We are passing 40,000 premises a week. We will do the last 3 million of those 4 million premises in the time that it took us to do the first 1 million. That was phase 1. Across Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, the area in which my hon. Friend’s constituency is located, the programme is worth about £45 million. About one third of premises in his constituency, or about 14,500, will get superfast broadband coverage as part of that programme.

In phase 2, we wanted to go from the 90% target we had set ourselves—we were open about that target—to 95%, which will give an additional 1,600 or so premises in my hon. Friend’s constituency access to superfast broadband. At the end of that phase, 42,000 premises in his constituency, or about 92%, will have superfast broadband.

Phase 3 initially involves a £10 million fund to do pilot projects in different parts of the country to trial the new technologies that my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) talked about, in order to evaluate the potential overall costs of getting to 100%. The figures on the back of an envelope were in the region of £1.5 billion to £2 billion, which is clearly an extraordinary amount of money, so we wanted to do work on the ground to evaluate how much it would actually cost.