Rural Communities in Scotland: Broadband

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Brendan O'Hara]

I advise the hon. Gentleman to look at the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. If that is not about devolving power to local communities, I do not know what is. We all have a mailbag full of broadband connection problems, but the fashion in which the Scottish Conservatives have behaved is unhelpful and unconstructive and does not reflect the reality.

In many ways I am delighted that digital communication is being debated here today, because it gives me the opportunity to enlighten the House as to exactly what is happening in Scotland and what the Scottish Government are doing in their Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme, which will have extended fibre access to 800,000 premises by March 2018, meaning that 95% of Scottish homes and businesses will be connected to superfast broadband. I am sure the whole House, with some honourable exceptions, will welcome that and applaud what the Scottish Government are doing.

This debate allows me to inform hon. Members of the enormously ambitious plans that the Scottish Government have—the R100 plans—that will see every home and business connected to superfast broadband with a USO of 30 megabits per second by 2021.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

Can the hon. Gentleman clarify whether the Scottish Government have been empowered to deliver the devolution of powers that he seeks?

[Brendan O'Hara]

In terms of devolving to local authorities?

[Liam Byrne]

The hon. Gentleman seeks devolution of power from the Scottish Government to local councils. My understanding is that central Government still have to legislate on that. Is that his understanding?

[Brendan O'Hara]

That is precisely my understanding. It is not in the Scottish Government’s power. I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman.

Unlike the United Kingdom Government, the Scottish Government are absolutely committed to a universal service obligation of 30 megabits per second. Compare that with the 10 megabit per second USO currently on offer from the UK Government.

As I say, we all have problems. My mailbag is absolutely full almost on a daily basis with problems with broadband. That does not mean that we are getting it wrong; it means, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) said, that we cannot keep up with demand. People rightly demand to be connected. In my constituency of Argyll and Bute, we are losing population. I have said from day one in my two and a half years in this House that digital connectivity is the key to regenerating rural Scotland. I applaud the Scottish Government’s ambition in rolling out superfast broadband at 30 megabits per second throughout rural Scotland.

I believe a bright digital future awaits those not only in Argyll and Bute, but across rural Scotland. Opposition naysayers will have humble pie to eat in a couple of years’ time when it arrives.

The hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) made a useful and thoughtful contribution highlighting the problems and challenges that exist in his constituency. It is a tale I am not unfamiliar with. I echo his call, as I have in the past, to end the silo thinking. There must be a joined-up approach, because digital exclusion will be a serious problem if we do not get this right.

The hon. Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) made a remarkable contribution and blamed the SNP for the historical copper wiring in the BT network. What can one say? My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun rightly highlighted the historical failure of the UK Government to sufficiently invest in Scotland. He also highlighted the problems facing roll-out in rural Scotland.

The hon. Member for Moray repeated the power- stripping narrative of the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk. If he thinks the Scottish Government should be stripped of their powers, does he think the UK Government should be stripped of their powers and that those powers should be devolved to English local authorities?

--- Later in debate ---

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth; thank you for preserving a modicum of order this morning as tempers rose. I congratulate the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on securing the debate. He is right that in the 21st century, broadband is not a luxury but an economic necessity. He eloquently argued that it is integral not simply to the way that we live, but to the way that we want to work. His timing is well chosen, because of course later this afternoon the Chancellor will have to stand up in the Chamber and try to explain to us all why a Conservative Government, and previously a Conservative-led coalition, have presided over a slower recovery after the financial crash than that following the great Wall Street crash of 1929.

As we rally behind a better future, growing the digital economy is clearly one of our most important opportunities. There are about 1.6 million people working in the digital economy today, but on average they are paid about 40% more than the national average. If we want to raise productivity growth rates and give our country a pay rise, we have to accelerate the roll-out of the digital infrastructure. I am sure he will not tell us this, but I very much hope that the Minister has been massively successful with his right hon. Friend the Chancellor and that there will be plenty of good news about broadband this afternoon.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Although the Government are pushing for flexible working time for parents of young children, the lack of decent broadband is grossly affecting people’s ability to work from home. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we need a UK-wide project—in other words, across Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and all of England—to end the isolation of rural communities and to increase jobs among small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises that need that rural broadband connection?

[Liam Byrne]

I completely agree, and some hon. Members are luckier than others in the resources that they have been given to deliver that vision. Over the coming years, we will be extremely interested to see what Northern Ireland has secured and delivered with the £1 billion that it was offered to prop the Government up and keep them in power.

We have heard a shocking litany of complaints today from the hon. Members for Angus (Kirstene Hair), for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham), for Moray (Douglas Ross) and for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) about the very high levels of dissatisfaction among their constituents and the very poor levels of service. I know that those complaints will have made a big impression on the Minister. The call made by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk for devolution of further power to councils raises an interesting point. My understanding is that the Scottish Government are not empowered to deliver that at the moment; it requires central Government to legislate. Perhaps the Minister will have more to say on that when he winds up; he may correct me, if I have grasped the wrong end of the stick. The challenge was brilliantly summarised by my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield), who described not only how superfast broadband is essential to the way that we want to live today, but how people are now scurrying between the wi-fi of various cafés to run their businesses. That is surely not the basis of the economic rebound that we want to see in the years to come.

I want to touch on three points in the debate, and they are about infrastructure, take-up and the way that we approach this policy problem. The bad tempers that we have heard this morning really illustrate that a new approach will be needed if we are to deliver for the people of Scotland over the coming years. On infrastructure, the state of affairs was well summarised. It is quite clear that broadband access is worse in Scotland than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Earlier this year, Which? found that the worst three local authorities for broadband access are all in rural Scotland. The present consensus that a lack of broadband access is harming economic growth is particularly troubling. Last week, the National Housing Federation reported:

“Rural connectivity to broadband...limits the number of people willing to start and run businesses from rural areas.”

That was at the heart of the argument presented by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk today. It is a real worry, and I hope that the Minister will explain to us what the Government are going to do about it.

The poor state of infrastructure, though, is only half the story. Often, these debates centre on theoretical access, which is quite different from the access that people actually receive. The headlines that I saw said that 83% of properties in Scotland can access superfast broadband, but it is much poorer in rural areas, where 46% can access superfast broadband. Furthermore, when people are asked, as they have been by Which?, about the kind of service that they actually receive, the estimates are that two thirds of rural connections receive an average speed of below 10 megabits per second, which is of course much lower than the Government’s universal service obligation. I understand the presentational issues that all Governments have to conjure with, but we have to ask ourselves whether we are doing the debate any service by continuing to talk about theoretical access speeds when we know that problems between the cabinet and the home mean that the rates actually received are far less effective than those advertised.

My second point is on the take-up of broadband services, which is much lower in Scotland than elsewhere in the country. There is a question about whether that is something to do with awareness and can be remedied by Government here in Westminster or, indeed, in Scotland. The broad point that should emerge from today’s debate is that there is no single actor in this policy environment that will make all the difference; a very different kind of collaboration will be required in the years to come. We need to create a policy environment in which, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian said, players can join in delivering these kinds of services. In some parts of Scotland, it will be much more effective for co-operative organisations to get stuck in and deliver the service in completely new ways. Many say to us that there is just not an encouraging policy environment for that at the moment.

My final point is about the poor level of collaboration between the Conservative Government here in Westminster and the Scottish National party Government in Scotland. We saw something of the character of that relationship this morning. It is not good for delivering progress and an awful lot more energy needs to be put into collaborating. It is just not appropriate for the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy and Connectivity, Mr Ewing, to have to take the extraordinary step of using a Scottish parliamentary answer to demand action on broadband from the UK Government. If that is how relationships are now being conducted, I am afraid that both sides have something to answer for.

Labour has sought to strengthen universal service obligations. Indeed, our amendments for a universal service obligation of 30 megabits per second passed in the Lords; it was unfortunate that the Government overturned them in the Commons. We think that a universal service obligation of 30 megabits per second should be delivered by 2022. That was the position set out in our manifesto, and we hope that the Chancellor has heeded that advice and will deliver something akin to it this afternoon.

Let me conclude by echoing the excellent words of my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian, who said that new inequalities must not be allowed to emerge in the digital economy. This is an area of economic progress that is simply too important for anyone to be left behind; our country simply cannot afford it. We look forward to what the Minister will tell us about remedying the problems that have been eloquently described and set out by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk this morning.