BT Openreach

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

I am grateful for the chance to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) for securing this important debate.

My hon. Friend asked two clear questions, but also pointed out that in four and half years in this place no Minister has ever answered his questions. I am a loyal Minister and I do not intend to break ranks with my colleagues. I will try to use the next 17 minutes to avoid, in any shape or form, answering my hon. Friend’s questions. If at any point it appears that I might stray towards an answer, I rely on my colleagues to intervene to prevent me from doing so. My hon. Friend needs to reach five years in this place without an answer, so that when the election hustings come he can say to his constituents, “In five years, no one has ever answered my questions.”

Of course, my hon. Friend will be re-elected, because he is a fantastic Member of Parliament. It is debates such as this one, in which he raises issues of concern to his constituents, that show why he is such a superb MP for his constituency.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

rose—

[Mr Vaizey]

Before I give way, will the hon. Gentleman let the House—and the Minister answering his question—know what his current status is?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I speak on a constituency matter. The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire made a good speech, in which he talked about rurality. I would like the Minister to answer one question. Does he recognise that, in Wales particularly, rurality affects almost every constituency? My constituents, Darren Hughes, Haydn and Pat David, Gill Dowling and Justin Legg are in Pencoed and Heol y Cyw, which are only two miles from the M4, yet they have intermittent service disrupted by bad weather. However, when they approach BT Openreach they do not get satisfactory answers, let alone compensation. Does he agree that they need to receive good customer service and satisfaction?

[Mr Vaizey]

I am not clear what question the hon. Gentleman is asking me. Is he asking whether every constituency in Wales has an element of rurality? [Interruption.] I agree—I answered that question directly. Do I agree that his three constituents deserve the help of Openreach? I agree. I have ensured that key executives from Openreach are within 50 yards of the hon. Gentleman, to take up his constituency case the minute this debate finishes.

It has been a bit of a broadband day for me. I started in the television studios of “Rip Off Britain”, with the great Angela Rippon, Gloria Hunniford and Julia Somerville, talking about broadband speeds, where, to my absolute astonishment, a member of the team told me that they lived in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) and he was an excellent Member of Parliament, in tune with his constituents.

I went on to a meeting with the Federation of Small Businesses, which told me its concerns about broadband and its ambitions for the Government. Obviously, I was fresh from answering all the parliamentary questions last Thursday, where a lot of my colleagues raised their concerns. The Secretary of State was nowhere to be seen, because he was in India, so I had to answer every question.

I am pretty broadbanded out, but now is the time to turn that around and give the positive message. First, the broadband roll-out programme is going well. We have passed more than 1 million premises and we are now passing up to 50,000 a week. It has really gathered speed. We are working in all the 44 areas where we have contracts.

In Wales, a scheme of some £200 million—if BDUK, Welsh Government and European money is taken into account, and not even including BT money—will cover some 750,000 premises by spring 2015. We have already reached almost 250,000 premises in Wales with superfast broadband. Let us not forget that BT’s commercial roll-out has also achieved superfast broadband for some 600,000 premises. By spring 2015, some 1.3 million premises in Wales will benefit from superfast broadband, if ours and BT’s rural broadband programme are combined.

The programme is on track. I pay tribute to the leadership of BT—Mike Galvin and Bill Murphy—on its rural broadband programme and on its tireless, hard-working engineers, many of whom worked in difficult conditions during the floods last winter to maintain it, as hon. Members will recall. While not ever losing sight of those who feel that they are being left behind by this programme—I will turn to that in a moment—it is important to celebrate its achievements and the enormous impact it has had.

I have decided to change my mind. This is a red letter day, because I am going to answer the two questions asked by my hon. Friend. What is the UK-wide strategy to promote greater take-up of broadband? He makes a good point. We are rolling out superfast broadband and it is important that people take it up. It is also important that people remember that superfast broadband is an engineering programme. We cannot wave a magic wand and deliver it overnight. We must also remember that there is a reason why this entire programme is not commercial and that, although we all see the benefits of superfast broadband, it is not necessarily taken up by everyone to whom it is available. That may be because people have decided that they do not need superfast broadband or because people are not aware that it is available in their area. We may be able to work with them to show them the benefits that superfast broadband would bring them.

In the very best cases, local authorities work hand in glove with BT and other providers to promote superfast broadband. One good example I can think of is Digital Durham, which from the beginning has had a take-up strategy embedded within it. Another good example is Cornwall, where there has been an ongoing project for several years. BT was originally contracted to reach 80%, but with the same money it is likely to reach 95% of the county. Cornwall has had digital take-up at its very heart with broadband roll-out.

There are two other issues that I hope will increase broadband take-up. First, working with BT, we are sharing data on how well take-up is going in particular areas. I opened the first broadband cabinet of our programme in North Yorkshire, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), and I am pleased to say that after my visit, take-up in that village soared to 60%. Clearly, although I am a pretty remarkable fellow, I cannot visit every single cabinet in the country, so that strategy has been ruled out. We are sharing the data on take-up by ward, so that we can identify areas where there is good take-up and areas where there is poor take-up to try to see whether any particular factors are behind that.

[Julian Smith]

I am pleased to hear that the pilot scheme is happening and that data are being shared. When I was at a presentation in North Yorkshire a few weeks ago, there was a still some reticence on the part of BT Openreach to release much of its data, so I urge the Minister to continue his campaign and to persuade it to share as much data as possible.

[Mr Vaizey]

We have made great progress with BT. Naturally, it is a commercial organisation, so sharing data with Government and more publicly is quite understandably an issue, because those data could be shared with commercial rivals. We have reached an agreement to share data by ward level on broadband, and that will begin to feed through.

Secondly, we have our SuperConnected Cities scheme, which offers business vouchers in 22 cities in the four nations of the United Kingdom. We have an advertising campaign promoting the take-up of those vouchers, and we have seen an uplift. We should therefore seriously consider whether a national campaign is needed to promote the benefits of superfast broadband. I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire loud and clear when he said that he felt that responsibility ultimately rested with the Government to promote broadband and broadband take-up. While I have talked about the need for BT and others and local councils to work together, I understand that point. We will look seriously at the role the Government can play in increasing broadband take-up.

[Guto Bebb]

In relation to the data being made available on a ward-by-ward basis, is that a decision for the Welsh Government or the Department here in Westminster?

[Mr Vaizey]

The decision on getting those data was taken at the level of BT working with Broadband Delivery UK, and those data will come via BDUK. We will work with the Welsh Government, as we do on the whole broadband roll-out programme.

The second question that my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire asked was about how we will deal with the last 4%, and I will answer that question, too. It is a bit like a goal drought followed by a goal festival. It is clear that we cannot leave anyone behind in the broadband revolution. As I said, it is an engineering project and cannot be wished into existence overnight. Having seen the success of phase 1, which was to take us to 90%—I think it will actually go to 93% in Wales, if not further—we instituted phase 2, to take us from the 90% headline to the 95% headline. There was £500 million for phase 1, plus local council money and BT money. Phase 2 is an additional £250 million to take us to 95% nationwide. Phase 3, as it will effectively be called, will be to get to the last 5%. My hon. Friend talked about the last 4%, but we say that it is 5%, broadly speaking.

The last 5% are the most difficult homes to reach. They are the proverbial hockey stick on the graph, where the cost gets significantly higher, and we need to ensure that we get value for money. Under the previous Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), we instituted a £10 million fund, where we invited different providers to provide pilots to test new technology for the most hard-to-reach areas. Those pilots are under way, and I think I am right in saying that we are evaluating their impact. The fund opened in March 2014 and we launched the pilots in June. One is in Wales and there are others in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Hampshire, Northumberland, Kent, north Lincolnshire, North Yorkshire, Devon and Somerset. The pilots have put their feasibility studies in to BDUK, and that will give us a good idea of what the best technology is to use—those who are critical of BT will be pleased to know that other companies are part of the pilots—and allow us to come up with a number that we can seek to fund the last 5%. That is an important point.

The third question, which my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire did not ask, although I think it formed the bulk of his speech—the reason why he did not ask me is because, arguably, I am not directly responsible—was on the performance of Openreach on customer service. Again, I know that he has a good relationship with Openreach. He has met their senior executives on at least one occasion, and possibly today as well, to talk through his concerns and issues. It is right that every colleague can raise concerns on operational performance. On Openreach’s operational performance, I am pleased that it is in the process of hiring some 1,600 additional engineers. As an aside, I am particularly pleased that many of those engineers have come from our armed services. It is good to see people who have served their country having the opportunity for a career in a company such as BT. I meet the chief executive of Openreach regularly. He is conscious of the need to continue to improve Openreach’s customer service and to meet his targets. My hon. Friend’s concerns and those raised by many other colleagues have been heard by Openreach.

I return to the high-level points that I want to make. With this programme, we have one of the most successful Government-sponsored roll-out programmes anywhere in the world. In terms of speed and the cost to the consumer, we have some of the best broadband infrastructure anywhere in the world. It is certainly better broadband than the other big four countries of the European Union. We have a great story to tell. We are a nation that was an early adopter of e-commerce, so we know that our fellow citizens are adopting this technology.

We will not, however, lose sight of those who are frustrated and left behind. Broadband has caught up with us and has become essential and important, whether for leisure, because we all access the BBC iPlayer or the numerous other internet applications, or—as my hon. Friend alluded to—as part of business, whether it is a farmer wanting to interact with the Rural Payments Agency, a citizen wanting to interact with Government services or a small business person wanting to sell their products and services not just locally, but across the globe. We will continue to strain every sinew to ensure that we deliver world-class infrastructure across all four parts of the United Kingdom. I am grateful indeed to my hon. Friend for raising these important issues and I end with an apology for having broken his four-and-a-half year unbroken record of being stonewalled by Ministers by simply answering his questions as directly and comprehensively as I could.

Question put and agreed to.