Rural Mobile Connectivity

Leigh Ingham Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for bringing forward this important debate. Mobile connectivity remains a real concern for many in rural communities, especially in my constituency of Stafford, Eccleshall and the villages. It affects how people run their businesses, how they keep in touch with family and how they keep safe, as the hon. Lady said, particularly on isolated roads and farms.

I will begin by acknowledging the great progress that has already been made in this area. My experience of the shared rural network and its extended coverage to around 280,000 homes and businesses after £500 million of investment has been positive. I recognise the importance of that investment in the difference that it has made to Staffordshire.

My constituency is about 40% rural, with 60% of people living in towns, and there is such a marked difference in the experience of connectivity. The gap is still quite stark: nearly half of rural deprived areas are not classed as 5G hotspots, compared with just 2.7% of urban deprived communities. In rural areas, only 20% of mobile masts have 5G deployed, compared with 48% in urban areas. Those figures show that although coverage may look strong on national averages, rural communities are feeling the gap and feeling left behind.

The issue is raised with me and my team regularly. Residents in Mare, Whitmore and Acton have all contacted me about unreliable mobile access, which leads to dropped calls, weak indoor signal and stretches of road with no coverage at all. That is just part of their daily lives when living in rural areas.

[Sarah Edwards (Tamworth) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Similarly, in my constituency, I surveyed residents in a number of villages such as Edingale, Clifton Campville and Harlaston to ask how bad the situation was. Some 49% said that their mobile connectivity was so bad that they could not work from home or even run their business. Does she agree that this really has to be a priority so that our villages are not left behind?

[Leigh Ingham]

I thank my hon. Friend. As fellow Staffordshire MPs, we experience broadly similar issues, and that echoes exactly what many people in my constituency have told me, particularly about working from home.

For farming businesses in particular, of which I have many in my constituency, the impact is even more clear. The National Farmers Union’s most recent survey found that only 22% of respondents report reliable mobile signal across their entire farm, and nearly one in 10 have no 4G or 5G access at all. At the same time, 98% said that mobile signal is important to their business. Here in this House, we regularly ask farmers to access schemes online, communicate digitally with our agencies and adopt new technology, yet many operate with poor or patchy connectivity. The gap between need and access is stark.

In the village of Church Eaton, residents endured years of very poor mobile coverage, at times unable to make 999 calls or receive NHS alerts, despite a mast having already been built under the shared rural network. The infrastructure was there, but it had not been switched on, which left the village in limbo and left residents—let’s be honest—really annoyed. Working closely with the determined residents—I pay tribute to them and the parish council that has campaigned on this for many years—I raised the issue in Parliament and VodafoneThree’s leadership got in contact directly to help get that site back into the company’s investment plan. I am pleased that following that joint effort and constructive engagement, the mast has been running since September, bringing reliable 4G coverage to the village for the first time, but it should not take an MP standing here for that to happen. The infrastructure was already there; the village was not waiting for it. The mast has meant stronger coverage not only for VodafoneThree customers in the village, but for customers of a wide variety of signal providers.

I want to place on the record my thanks again to the parish councils across my constituency that have worked on this issue for years. They regularly gather evidence, engage with providers and keep the issue alive. Their persistence is invaluable in making progress in this space, because as more and more public services move online, access to stable mobile and broadband connectivity become even more important.

Rural communities should not be left waiting while national averages improve on paper. We need faster delivery of the shared rural network to eliminate the total notspots, alongside support for a mix of technologies to reach hard-to-access areas. Most importantly, rural communities must have confidence that they are not an afterthought in any roll-out plans. People living in villages, on farms and down country lanes deserve the same reliable connectivity as anyone else, and closing that gap is essential for fairness and productivity, and also to increasing opportunity in rural Britain. We have some wonderful businesses and local farms that want to develop, but a lack of connectivity can hold them back. I would love to hear what steps the Minister is taking to advance mobile connectivity and involve rural communities moving forward.

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. For the last 18 months, the Government have been sitting on the guidance relating to gender-questioning children in schools—a very controversial subject—which the Government keep saying is coming. It has become apparent in the last half an hour that they plan to publish this guidance at 4 pm today, just moments before the House goes into recess for a week. It is hard to see this as anything other than a deliberate attempt to avoid the scrutiny of this House on an important issue. What can we do to put this right?