Broadband: Rural Communities

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Chris Loder]

Yes, I entirely agree. For far too long the prioritisation has been to connect urban and more densely populated areas, rather than rural areas. We live in a country where we do not value people’s lives more in urban areas than in rural areas; it is important to have fairness across the board, including in terms of investment. Only last week in this very Chamber, I and other Members made the point that rural funding and investment—for rural councils, services or others—need to be prioritised much more. We do not want a turf war; we just want fairness across the board. At the moment, I am afraid to say, I am concerned that my constituents in West Dorset are not receiving that fairness.

I do not know whether colleagues here will appreciate or understand the term “rural notspots”, but they are a big issue. Rural notspots are areas where people are lucky if they can get a mobile signal and extremely lucky if they can get a broadband connection. Vodafone’s report, “Connecting the Countryside”, revealed that 4.8 million people in rural constituencies live in 5G notspots, and 100% of West Dorset is a 5G notspot or partial notspot. That has a huge impact on residents across my constituency and, I am sure, in neighbouring ones as well.

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

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for calling this debate. He is absolutely right about notspots. We have notspots in the city of Hereford, but in Herefordshire we also have very isolated areas. Does he share my view that the problem is not just with Openreach and the enforcement of Ofcom, but that there is a specific problem related to the reliance on voice over internet protocol, as though that were a solution with batteries for people who find themselves isolated, as my constituents were in Bacton and Abbeydore recently? What long-term solution will we have to address that issue, alongside all the ones my hon. Friend has already memorably raised?

[Chris Loder]

I wholly agree. In a moment, I intend to talk about the impact of the digital phone switchover, because it appears to be complete madness that we are continuing to progress with that when there are vast swathes of rural Britain—not just rural West Dorset, but other areas, including, I am sure, my right hon. Friend’s constituency—where the decent or functional connectivity that is needed to achieve that switchover is lacking.

On many previous occasions, I have stressed that the statistics provided by organisations such as Ofcom, which is meant to be the regulator, simply do not represent the lived experiences of many thousands of my own constituents, and colleagues from across the House will probably express a similar view. It is totally unacceptable that Ofcom states that every area in and around the village of Stoke Abbott has either good or okay data coverage. Well, I am afraid that the reality is quite the opposite, as anyone who visited would see, and many other villages and parishes have the same issue. It is bordering on a scandal that enormous mobile phone operators can publish data saying that they provide a signal or a connection, and that is backed up by Ofcom, when the reality is that people living in those parishes—although it can also be the case outside, not just inside the home—cannot get a signal at all. Around 75% of the community I surveyed about the issue ranked their coverage in the worst possible terms. Stoke Abbott in my constituency has 0% gigabit capability and a widespread lack of 4G, and I mentioned the 5G notspots earlier.

I want to use this opportunity to bring to the attention of the House e-petition 636502, which is on the funding of fixed wireless broadband for poorly connected areas. Having been elected to this House four years ago, almost to the day, I have become very well aware that when it comes to petitions, it is those with the largest number of signatories that get the biggest hearing. E-petition 636502 has received 1,232 signatures. On the face of it, that may not be a huge number but, my goodness, those 1,232 people are the most affected by the inability of any part of the sector to provide them with the most basic level of connectivity, forcing them into a totally unacceptable level of rural isolation and indeed rural poverty.

We know that there is a huge difference to the economy and people’s wellbeing where there is a fixed broadband connection; we also know that 98% of people in urban areas have a fixed broadband connection compared with just 83% of people in rural areas, and that fixed broadband connection correlates to economic activity. In constituencies such as my own, a third of the population are over 65. That is an unusually high age demographic, meaning that there are many older people who are not familiar with—in some cases, they are unable to become familiar with—the technology required to achieve some of the things that the Government and others might like to see in the evolution of communications; I have already mentioned the digital phone switchover, but I am also talking about basic services. We are seeing record numbers of bank branches closing in market towns. Elderly people are being put in a situation in which they are fearful of using technology because they may not necessarily have the skills to pick up whether a particular correspondence or email is spam; they fear the consequences of doing the wrong thing, often feel that they are between a rock and a hard place, and are not sure what to do.

Some 97% of the businesses in West Dorset are small or micro-sized. Our economy is very rural. Those small businesses need better connectivity than they have. It is really concerning that an attempted change through the digital phone switchover, which has been postponed once, although I understand that BT is going to progress with that. I find it incredible that organisations such as the Local Government Association estimate that 1.7 million people who access technology-enabled care and support will be put at risk because of a potential lack of connection once the analogue lines are switched to digital. How can any moral organisation consider doing that when we are presented with such statistics? I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will take particular note of this point, because it is a massive concern for Members such as myself who represent vastly rural constituencies with a considerable number of older people; we have many concerns about their care in that situation.

The problem is not so strongly felt in urban areas, but it is important to talk about the extent of the roll-out of improvement across the board. Part of the yield-prioritised approach of many larger businesses is that they look to roll out schemes, in line with Government incentive schemes, that will benefit as many houses as possible in the shortest possible time. That is all well and good, but when an area of the country—perhaps an urban one—that has, say, 100 megabits per second speed is looking to improve still further to gigabit speed, and there are places with barely a 2 megabit per second speed that are still being left behind, something is going quite wrong.

In September 2022, gigabit coverage was 47% in predominantly rural areas versus 79% in urban areas. My constituency and, I am sure, those of neighbouring Members of Parliament will be experiencing the same thing. The Government have set very clear targets, which I appreciate because they are helpful to give guidance to the industry about the Government’s wish and intention. The Government targets of 85% and 99% gigabit availability by 2025 and 2030 respectively sound good, and I appreciate them, but it is really important that the Government hear this message loud and clear: it is no longer acceptable to me that the 15% and 1% respectively are the same 15% and 1% who lost out in previous schemes. Those people are being pushed further and further back in the wider connectivity race than they should be. That is why I called out earlier the pretty ruthless, commercial and yield-maximising approach of some of the largest companies in this space; that approach needs to be challenged, and I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister will consider how we can ensure much better fairness in this area.

West Dorset serves as a particularly good example. The Minister will know that if a provider signs up to one of the various different Government schemes—whether it is the voucher scheme or, for example, a community fibre partnership—that blocks the capacity or capability of a competitor to say, “Actually, we would like to go there.” That business can hold on to the area and get its claws into it for a prolonged period. It appears almost anti-competitive that, as happened in the Bridport area of my constituency, Jurassic Fibre, with the best of intentions, formerly did lots of very good work and was then taken over by AllPoints Fibre, and now the engineering work and the whole approach to making that happen has been put on hold, ad infinitum in many areas. The company feels as though it is okay to put that on hold while it considers the consequences of its reorganisation and takeover. Well, that is not acceptable. When there are other businesses and companies that believe they could provide that service to local people much more quickly, and possibly more efficiently, it is anti-competitive to allow that sort of behaviour.

I could run through so many parishes by way of example, but if there is one thing that I really would like the Minister to come back on and/or action, it is this approach by some providers that, in effect, land grab and say that they will make improvements and meet the Government’s intentions—whether through a voucher scheme or otherwise—but then fail to deliver and block others from showing an interest in doing so. Indeed, the whole bidding process for providing the next level of improvements is hugely affected by this as well, which is a great concern to me. I hope the Government will take action, understand that those organisations that have committed to do something have not delivered, and remove the primacy they have to prevent others from doing so.

I would like to summarise my remarks, because I know that many other colleagues would like to speak in this debate, and I appreciate the time that I have had so far. Overall, I would like the Government to note that, for the last four years that I have been in this place, one of my priorities has been to ensure that we make substantial improvements to address rural isolation and rural connectivity. I know full well that the Government have indeed made a lot of progress in that area, and a lot of my constituents have felt those improvements. But it is also fair to say that the most rural villages and parishes still continue to be left out, just because they might have only 40 or 50 homes, or maybe even 100. That is not acceptable and not part of what we believe is right, in the spirit of fairness across the country for all our constituents.

I warmly encourage my colleagues here to contribute to the debate with their own experiences. I am sure that many colleagues present, especially those representing rural areas, will have very similar stories to mine. That is why it is so important that we have this debate and allow the Government to hear this feedback, I think for the second time today—I understand that there was the copper cabling debate earlier, which I am sorry I was not able to be at, because of other business that I had to attend to in the House. I hope that we will see real, significant improvements to how we support the most rurally isolated people in our society today.