Shared Rural Network

Lord Haselhurst Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

I am concerned that I may have confused—I hope I have not misled—the House, so I will try to correct any confusion. The companies will have individual service obligations. Each operator will be at 92% individual coverage by 2025, with a combined footprint of 95%—I hope that the noble Lord has the Venn diagram in his mind. Part of the increase in coverage comes from the mobile operators, part comes from the investment of the Government in total not-spot areas, and part comes from the use of the emergency services network. So there will be individual commitments, there is an aggregate commitment, and a greater aggregate footprint, with coverage in areas that today have none whatever.

[Lord Haselhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as someone who lives in a very rural area and who is familiar with the many deficiencies that have been described already. It is hard to describe today’s Statement as unhelpful or unwelcome. However, when I hear my noble friend refer to the fact that the big four will be encouraged to subcontract or delegate some of the work to assist the coverage, I am minded of what has happened with broadband. Companies have come along and got bespoke contracts to fill in the gaps but, unfortunately, they have been extremely dilatory, playing around with promises now stretching back five years, with no actuality of service as a result. We would not want such a thing to happen again in the mobile telephony field: therefore, some stick should be put behind any such arrangements.

[Baroness Barran]

My Lords, I understand that it is particularly in relation to the supply chain that we anticipate the involvement of other organisations. As regards there being a stick, there is a very major one for mobile network operators in the sense that they can be fined up to 10% of their turnover, which is pretty hefty, if they fail to deliver this by 2026.