Phone and Broadband Coverage (Herefordshire)

Debate between Jesse Norman and Anne Main

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—

[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A mobile phone service is a lifeline for many people in rural areas, especially as BT telephone boxes are being withdrawn.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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.