Business of the House

John Glen Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The Government are conscious of this issue, and since 2010 have set out on more decentralisation than has happened for decades to many cities and towns in the UK. I think, from memory, that Bristol has entered into a city deal. There are further opportunities to push that forward. When we have the debate that the Backbench Business Committee has nominated for two weeks today on devolution and the Union, it will be entirely right to raise those issues.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

Many residents in the village of Bishopstone, just 5 miles from Salisbury, have been cut off without a landline for most of the last three months. That is a massive challenge when so many of them are elderly and there is no mobile signal. Unfortunately, BT has given conflicting advice about when the problem can be resolved. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on how we can avoid such a thing happening in future, and how better connectivity can be achieved in rural areas?

[Mr Hague]

I can understand my hon. Friend raising this in the House when people have been cut off from their telephone service for so long, which is obviously not good enough. This year, Ofcom introduced a series of performance targets for providers—in particular for Openreach—which they are required to meet or they will face penalties, including fines. This year, Openreach announced the creation of 2,400 new engineering roles. I hope that providers will listen carefully to what my hon. Friend has said, so that the problem will be rectified and we will not need to have a debate on it in the House.