Broadband (East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire)

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

Absolutely, I confess that my geography gets a bit shady south of Sheffield, but my hon. Friend’s constituency—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Just to help with the geography, I am sure we are not going to stretch it too far again. I understand that the hon. Lady wanted to get the south-west on the record, but this debate is about Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

[Andrew Percy]

There will be no mention of Lancashire, Mr Deputy Speaker, which I know will disappoint you.

My hon. Friend’s point was a general one about the whole country. Many of our schools cannot access the educational tools they wish to access because of poor broadband speeds. Access to those speeds makes such a difference. The double whammy in my area is that schools have lower funding compared with schools in other parts of the country. Investing in more impressive kit therefore becomes more challenging for them.

It is estimated that small and medium-sized enterprises with superfast broadband continue to grow by 4.7%, compared with 0.6% for those without. My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe recently collected an award on behalf of Scunthorpe because it has the fastest-growing online retail business.

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[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) once again on securing this debate on a subject that is vital throughout the country and particularly in our part of northern Lincolnshire. I cannot speak for the east Yorkshire part of my hon. Friend’s constituency, because that is beyond the passport control point.

Northern Lincolnshire has been recognised by the Government in their excellent decisions over recent months in designating enterprise zones in the Grimsby and Cleethorpes constituencies, to which my hon. Friend referred. The Government recognised the possibilities for the renewable sector, particularly the offshore renewable sector. Like my hon. Friend, I do not particularly care for onshore renewable wind turbines, but we recognise the importance of offshore, and if that is to take place, not just the large companies based on Immingham dock—the largest port in the country—but the small, rural villages need to be involved, too. I mentioned in my intervention Croxton and Kirmington in my constituency, which have been particularly badly hit. Their parish councils are doing a tremendous job in constantly bringing that to my attention.

Immingham itself has a number of blackspots. It is fair to congratulate Tom Horton at the Oasis academy which, along with One Voice Immingham, has played a large part in advocating the needs of the area. Indeed, they got Virgin interested in providing an alternative broadband service to that of BT—not to that of O₂, as I mentioned earlier; it would seem that I live in the past, when O₂ was part of BT. As I say, this is important not just for businesses based in Immingham dock, but for small businesses that can develop in the villages around the constituency of the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) as well as those in my Cleethorpes constituency. We have also recently heard about difficulties accessing benefits. That can be done online, and we need to encourage it.

In recent months, one of the Government’s actions to boost our area has been the reduction in Humber bridge tolls. Only today the Grimsby Telegraph—that organ of local communication so vital to people of the Grimsby and Cleethorpes area—features a story about a business that relocated into Barton-upon-Humber in the north end of my constituency solely because of the benefits accrued since the reduction in the tolls. We have seen—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am sure that it is possible to discuss many parts of the county, but I am sure, too, that we want to get back to the subject of broadband rather than the tolls. I can see the benefit of their reduction for businesses, but it is certainly not for the benefit of this debate.

[Martin Vickers]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for drawing me back closer to the important issue of broadband.

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[Mr Stuart]

I am grateful, and I am sure that he was making the point that the admirable and excellent reduction in bridge tolls, the improvement of the A164, the Beverley southern by-pass and the vast investment in infrastructure—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that is not part of the debate. Members certainly do not need to reply to the point or bring it into the debate again. I am being very generous and I am trying to help. I am sure that no one wants to test the Chair’s patience at this stage.

[Martin Vickers]

I certainly do not wish to test your patience, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I welcomed the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), who, as always, spoke words of wisdom.

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[Martin Vickers]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. One of the important consequences of the campaign for broadband in northern Lincolnshire is the teamwork that has developed between my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole, the hon. Members for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), and for Scunthorpe, and me. I believe that we are known locally as the A team.

The importance of broadband to small businesses in my constituency cannot be overestimated. We have developed considerably since the dark days of 20 years ago and the decline of the fishing industry in the neighbouring constituency of Great Grimsby. The development of that industry has actually been encouraged by broadband, and by sales throughout the UK and abroad.

I shall now conclude my remarks and await the comments of the Minister, who I know will have positive news for the people of northern Lincolnshire.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call the Minister, with or without shovel for Lincolnshire.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

It is a great pleasure to respond to the debate, which began rather earlier than I had expected. I am glad that the eye-level cameras have not yet been installed in the Chamber, because if they had been, they would have captured graphic high-definition images of my sweating face as I returned post-haste to the Chamber to respond to this important debate.

It is good to be back in the Chamber of the House of Commons, but thanks to modern technology—partly brought about by the advent of modern communications —one is able to keep in touch with colleagues even when one is not in the Chamber. I must say that during the reshuffle madness that overtook us earlier in the week, when some of us were hoping to hold on to our jobs, I was grateful to Twitter for giving me an insight into the mental state of some of my colleagues.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) on initiating this important debate. Let me begin by saying that I think he is a great loss to the Front Bench. I know that it is only a matter of time before the Prime Minister sees sense and appoints him to the Front Bench, not least because I have read some of his tweets, which give an indication of the policies that will be introduced when he does join us. Lancashire is to be declared a rogue state; a new Department will be set up, the Department for Brigg and Goole—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am sure that the Minister does not wish to test the Chair by referring to Lancashire at this stage. I am sure that he is desperate to get stuck into Yorkshire and Lincolnshire—and only the minor parts of both counties.

[Mr Vaizey]

Knowing your personal interest in the future of Lancashire, Mr Deputy Speaker, I thought it important for you to understand the policies that may be presented to the House in future, including, of course, the final policy—the change of name from Snickers to Marathon. But you are quite right: it is important for us to return to the subject of the debate.

Let me also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) on contributing so ably to the debate. He is a soothsayer. I read a tweet from him 131 days ago, in which he said “Louise Mensch is a great talent of our party. One day she will be leader.” I read a later tweet regretting her departure from the House of Commons.

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[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I do not think that we should have any more mention of tweets. I think that we should return to the subject of broadband, and not worry about Members who have left the House and given notice that they no longer wish to be part of it. I call the Minister, and I hope that he will return to the subject in hand.

[Mr Vaizey]

It is very important for us to debate the provision of broadband services in the constituency of Brigg and Goole. My hon. Friend mentioned six issues on which he would like to hear from me about progress. The first was wireless provision. The second was whether the bid from his part of the world could be moved up the ladder. The third was the role of Kingston Communications in broadband delivery. The fourth was the question of what steps might be taken if a funding gap arises. The fifth was a request for a guarantee that broadband roll-out will be finished by 2015. The sixth was an update on 4G spectrum. In responding to those six points, I have an opportunity to update my hon. Friend and the House on the progress that has been made in achieving the Government’s objective of stimulating more private sector investment in locations where the commercial investment case is weak.

Let me make it clear that we do not underestimate the importance of superfast broadband in stimulating economic growth and in providing a core service for many businesses and consumers throughout the country. That is why one of the first steps we took on coming to office was to set aside some £530 million to support public intervention. It is important to stress the fact that that money has been provided to support the roll-out of superfast broadband where the market will not deliver.

The market will deliver to about two thirds of the country, mainly the urban areas. That will be done by BT and Virgin Media in competition with each other, and I am delighted to be able to say that both of those companies are investing many hundreds of millions of pounds in rolling out superfast broadband. Virgin Media has doubled the speeds it offers to consumers to about 100 megabits and BT has advanced the roll-out of its commercial broadband programme by a year.

Everybody knows, however, that some public support is needed to get broadband to some areas, particularly rural areas where the cost of laying fibre exceeds the potential market return. The £530 million sum I mentioned has been supplemented by a £150 million urban broadband fund, as well as a further £150 million for mobile infrastructure projects, and because of the way we have set out the programme, there will be additional money from local councils. There will be between £1 billion and £1.5 billion of public money going into broadband roll-out. That is a very significant amount of public expenditure in infrastructure.

The newspapers are full of talk about stimulation for growth and investment in “shovel-ready projects”. This is a shovel-ready project that will be going ahead in the next weeks and months and over the next two years. It will not only provide jobs, as many people will be employed to lay this fibre, but stimulate the economy by providing a broadband infrastructure.

I would like to acknowledge the significant contribution made by local authorities, which have stepped up to the challenge magnificently both in identifying local funds to match the Government contribution and in leading project procurement and implementation. North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire councils have put together proposals for a joint project, and East Riding of Yorkshire council has developed plans for a project in east Yorkshire. Indeed, we have been able to approve all local broadband plans, with the exception of one, Sandwell, which I hope will be ready for approval in the very near future.

Broadband Delivery UK state aid broadband notification has taken longer to be approved by the European Commission than was anticipated. We had hoped it would be approved earlier in the year, but we believe we are now in the final stage of discussions with the Commission on the detail, and we hope it will be signed off shortly. Once we have that approval, the BDUK team in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will be able to give state aid approval for all projects that are compatible with the notification, allowing for a much more rapid turnaround than if the Commission had to deal with each one separately. I recognise that there has been some impact on the project pipeline, but we will work as hard as we can to meet our 2015 deadline for having the best superfast broadband in Europe.

We have used this time to our advantage. We have prepared projects for procurement under the BDUK framework. The framework contract was agreed by DCMS with BT and Fujitsu at the end of June. It allows projects to undertake accelerated procurement with standard terms and conditions. Five projects are already in procurement using the framework, and we have agreed with the bidders that further projects will enter procurement at a rate of about one per week from October onwards. We expect procurement to be complete by next summer. I would like to recognise the willingness shown by the suppliers to accommodate our shared desire to increase the pace of procurement.

I want to say a few words about broadband in north Lincolnshire. There may be concerns about the pipeline of projects, and my hon. Friend mentioned his concern about where his project resides in the list. The situation is straightforward: projects are listed in line with the order in which local broadband plans were approved. Projects that were able to move more quickly at the early stage have therefore appeared earlier in the list. While there may be other ways of defining the list, our experience has been that the order in which the projects come forward does broadly match their readiness to go ahead. However, if projects are not ready when their procurement slot is reached, we will promote another project up the list. I do not want to encourage my hon. Friend therefore to sabotage other broadband projects, but it is important that he be aware that, in effect, the list reflects when projects are ready for procurement; but the list can change, and it is therefore important that he and the project team keep in touch with BDUK.

BDUK is working to progress projects to preparation at the earliest opportunity, and I understand that north Lincolnshire should be entering the BDUK assurance process in early November and will be able to launch its open market review in that month. That will be a significant milestone for the project.

My hon. Friend also mentioned his concern about funding gaps. Again, I do not want to give him or others who have spoken in the debate false hope, but obviously our door is always open to hear concerns and requests. However, we do need clear evidence of a gap in funding before considering a request for further funding. We certainly expect good evidence to be made available of any shortfall, and we will consider a good case if one is put forward. I stress to my hon. Friend, however, that there needs to be clear evidence of a funding gap.

My hon. Friend also mentioned the position of Kingston Communications. The use of suppliers not listed on the framework is a matter for the project teams. We have of course encouraged projects to use the framework because it saves time and procurement process costs. We expect all the remaining procurements to be undertaken using the framework. We recognise that other suppliers, such as Kingston Communications, may have an interest in this programme. However, it must be for the project team, working with BDUK, to decide whether the benefits of opening the procurement more widely would offset the benefits of effectively departing from the framework contract. That is an important point to make.