Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateJulia Lopez
Main Page: Julia Lopez (Conservative - Hornchurch and Upminster)Department Debates - View all Julia Lopez's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(2 years ago)
Commons ChamberThe UK Government have a strong record of demonstrating our commitment to minority language broadcasting, to make sure that our broadcasters serve all audiences of the UK nations and regions. My hon. Friend will recall that during his previous role at the Scotland Office we both met MG Alba’s CEO earlier this year. I am grateful to the chief executive for raising the issues of the sustainability of Gaelic language broadcasting and for providing detailed proposals for change. My officials have since been in regular contact with the organisation and I am continuing to talk to counterparts at the Scotland Office. I will have further discussions with MG Alba in due course.
I am grateful for that answer. Gaelic broadcasting is not just vital culturally and socially, but delivers a positive economic impact. Its future strength, however, requires public sector broadcast status in legislation, akin to that enjoyed by Welsh language broadcasters. I suggest to my right hon. Friend that the forthcoming Media Bill will be an ideal opportunity to provide that.
I entirely appreciate that certainty of future funding and particularly a strong partnership with the BBC are important for MG Alba to deliver for Gaelic speakers. It has legitimate concerns, and I have been examining its proposals in detail. Together with my officials, I am trying to decide whether the forthcoming Media Bill is the best mechanism to address those concerns, or whether the issues are better addressed through the future funding review of the BBC and the subsequent BBC charter review. I assure my hon. Friend that I am very engaged in these issues and want to get to a good solution.
There was a time when Gaelic was spoken in much of my far-flung constituency; that is not the case today. I regard Gaelic as not just a Scottish but a United Kingdom treasure. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that she might benefit from coming to the Gàidhealtachd, where Gaelic is spoken in the Western Isles, perhaps in parts of my constituency, to see what needs to be done to help it.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind invitation, and for highlighting the importance of Gaelic not just as a language but as a cultural asset for our country that we should be proud of. I hope that he feels assured that I have been listening to the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) about MG Alba and wish to ensure that it has a sustainable future.
We are investing £5 billion in Project Gigabit so that hard-to-reach areas can get ultra-reliable gigabit speeds. We have already upgraded over 740,000 premises. National gigabit coverage has therefore rocketed to 71%, up from just 6% in January 2019. We have already launched procurements with a value of over £700 million to deliver gigabit connections to hard-to-reach homes and businesses across the UK. We recently signed our first contracts in north Dorset and Teesdale, with more coming soon.
My constituents in Throwley and Wichling were incredibly disappointed to find that their bids for gigabit vouchers were unsuccessful, especially after they worked so hard to gather community support. While most people are able to use their broadband to do video calls, work from home, and stream movies and matches, those constituents cannot. Can my hon. Friend assure me that they will be getting fast broadband soon?
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this case and for all the work that she and her team did to help those villages. I asked officials to look into this case, and they told me that the broadband supplier responsible for the projects in those villages did not put them forward for consideration as a voucher priority area, on the basis that they were not expected to deliver a gigabit-capable connection faster than our own Project Gigabit procurement in Kent. In good news, I can assure my hon. Friend that we are making very good progress on that procurement and we hope to be able to launch it in the coming weeks.
I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting her particular concerns in West Worcestershire. We obviously share her desire to get great connections to everybody as quickly as possible. We are reviewing the voucher scheme and checking that it is working correctly at the moment and seeing whether it can be enhanced. I see from the figures that her West Worcestershire constituency is lower than average on gigabit connections, but we have an active procurement review under way and hope to be able to give her more details on that soon because we will be mopping up all the hard-to-reach areas of her patch.
We need more full-fibre and gigabit-capable broadband in the Kettering constituency. Can we have it sooner rather than later?
I welcome my hon. Friend constantly holding my feet to the fire on Kettering’s gigabit capability. He is actually above the national average, with 88% of premises in his seat having gigabit-capable broadband, but I am glad to say that we are doing more. We will be awarding a procurement next year to try to tackle all those bits we have not yet reached.
My understanding is that some of the main challenges come from the Scottish Government’s R100 programme, which is making the roll-out rather challenging. His colleagues in Scotland have asked for Scotland to have more than the per premises cap, basically asking us to give more money to Scotland than we are giving to other parts of the country. I do not think that is fair, and I do not think we should be paying for the mistakes of the regime.
A year ago, I and a number of colleagues from across the House had to intervene when, due to poor governance, Derby County football club went into administration and came within a few days of going out of business before being rescued by local supporter David Clowes. Can the Minister assure the House and all football fans that the recommendations of the fan-led review will be implemented in full, so that we can get better governance in this important industry?
I confess that, as the Minister for the creative industries, I share some of the hon. Lady’s concerns. I will be meeting my ministerial counterpart who has the Intellectual Property Office in his portfolio to look at this matter, because I appreciate some of the issues the hon. Lady raises.
What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that UK radio listeners are able to find British broadcasters, including the BBC and commercial radio, in a world where access through smart speakers is controlled by global tech companies?