Rural Broadband: Installation

Luke Myer Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Kanishka Narayan]

I thank the hon. Member for making that point, and I am very happy to engage with him both individually and with my colleague, the Minister for Digital Economy, on the particular experience of his constituents.

The contributions we have heard today from across the House again highlight just how essential connectivity has become to daily life. We have heard about its centrality to work, education and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) said, to healthcare, online banking, farming, running a business or simply staying connected with friends and family.

The Government recognise that delays in broadband delivery can be particularly frustrating for rural residents, who often have fewer alternatives than urban residents, and for whom a slow or unreliable internet connection can have a deep impact on their quality of life and economic opportunities. Our mission is to ensure that 99% of premises can access a gigabit-capable connection by 2032. According to the latest figures from the independent website thinkbroadband.com, over 89% of UK premises already have access to a gigabit-capable connection.

Through Project Gigabit, we are targeting precisely the communities that have been highlighted in today’s debate. Commercial roll-out would not otherwise take place for these communities, and public investment is therefore essential. As at the end of September 2025, over 1.3 million premises in rural and hard-to-reach communities across the UK had been upgraded to gigabit-capable broadband through Government-funded programmes. In addition, over 1 million premises are now included in signed Project Gigabit contracts worth £2.4 billion in total.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

There is a persistent issue in the Stainton and Thornton area of my constituency, which residents have raised with me. Would the Minister commit to meet me to discuss this issue?

[Kanishka Narayan]

I know my hon. Friend is a deeply committed champion for his constituency, so I would be very happy to meet him—both on my own and with my colleague, the Minister for Digital Economy—to look at the issues in his constituency.

We are making good progress on delivering these contracts. We have already celebrated the completion of the first three Project Gigabit contracts in Northumberland, Teesdale and north Dorset, which marks an important milestone in our programme. These early completions show that the programme is working, and rural communities are beginning to see the benefits of this investment.

The majority of premises receiving Government funding for broadband upgrades continue to be rural. Between April 2024 and March 2025, 89% of the premises benefiting from our interventions in this sector were in rural areas, including proud farming communities. We remain absolutely committed to ensuring that these communities receive the gigabit-capable connectivity they need and deeply deserve.

I also recognise, with honesty, that there have been delays to subsidised roll-out across Devon and Somerset in particular, as a result of premises being descoped from contracts under the earlier superfast broadband programme, including in the constituency of the hon. Member for Bridgwater.

When suppliers encounter financial, operational or technical challenges, I know that rural communities feel the impact the most, and as a proud representative of rural communities in south Wales, I feel it, too. I want to reassure hon. Members that we are closely engaging with Connecting Devon and Somerset, and with suppliers, to establish a clear path forward.

Following the announcement in 2025, descoped premises, particularly in the constituency of the hon. Member for Bridgwater, were made available for suppliers to bring forward proposals under the gigabit broadband voucher scheme. Several suppliers expressed interest, and I am pleased to say that approximately 3,000 premises are now included in approved voucher projects. Around 8,500 descoped premises remain without confirmed commercial or subsidised plans. However, these premises are now being considered for inclusion in the Project Gigabit contract with Openreach. We expect to finalise the amended scope of that contract in the spring. The hon. Member feels that work is urgent, and I do, too.

Approximately 3,100 premises in the hon. Gentleman’s Bridgwater constituency are currently included in the Project Gigabit contract delivered by Openreach, and my hope is that this intervention will deliver gigabit-capable connections to homes and businesses across the constituency, such as those in Nether Stowey, North Petherton and Westonzoyland.

Although 3,400 premises in Bridgwater were descoped from the previous superfast broadband contracts, almost half of those premises have since been connected through a supplier’s commercial roll-out, without the need for public subsidy. The remainder are included within the scope of the current contract change discussions we are undertaking with Openreach.

A healthy, competitive broadband market is fundamental to achieving our national gigabit ambition. Commercial delivery has been and will remain the backbone of the UK’s digital transformation. The majority of gigabit-capable connections have been delivered entirely through private investment. The Government’s role is to create the right environment for such investment to continue at pace. That is why we continue to work in close partnership with both industry and Ofcom to support the roll-out of fibre networks across the UK, including in the most rural and hard-to-reach areas.

Our approach is designed to complement commercial build, not to replace it, ensuring that public funding is targeted only where the market cannot deliver on its own. In July last year, we published a consultation on our draft statement of strategic priorities to Ofcom, setting out the Government’s view on the importance of promoting competition and maintaining a stable regulatory environment that gives investors confidence. A predictable and proportionate regulatory framework is essential for suppliers to continue investing billions in our fibre networks. Ensuring that regulation is not lifted prematurely is central to protecting our consumers, which is why competition must be properly established before we can relax regulatory safeguards. That is the approach needed to deliver long-term benefits.

I know there has been a question about where the Government are in this process. Our draft statement set out our position on infrastructure sharing, which has become one of the sector’s most important enablers of competition. In particular, Ofcom’s physical infrastructure access product has allowed over 100 alternative networks to roll out fibre using Openreach’s ducts and poles, lowering barriers to entry and helping to accelerate competition. We have asked Ofcom to provide greater transparency on how PIA pricing is calculated and set, because transparency is the underpinning driver of confidence for investors.

We are reviewing responses to the consultation on our draft statement of strategic priorities, and we will set out the Government’s conclusions in due course. I of course note the hon. Member’s comments, and we are all hoping for pace as well as rigour in the response to the consultation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Myer Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova]

Oh my goodness! The hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) makes a really important point about the importance of interfaith working, and it happens at all levels—we have our local clergy but also faith leaders and advisers working across all different faiths to bring us together. What happened last summer during the riots was a good example of how interfaith leaders work together.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

6. What progress the National Church Institutions have made on improving safeguarding.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I thank my hon. Friend for continuing to rightly hold the Church to account on this issue. As he knows, in February the General Synod voted to adopt a partially independent safeguarding model that includes an external scrutiny body and a commitment to carry out further work to identify the legal and practical challenges of moving towards a fully independent safeguarding model.

[Luke Myer]

Next month I will meet the Safeguarding Minister alongside my constituent and a group of survivors of abuse and safeguarding failure within the Church. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for the work she has been doing to push the case for fully independent safeguarding processes. Will she continue to impress upon colleagues the need for full independence in terms of operations and oversight within the Church?

[Marsha De Cordova]

I reiterate that it is really important that Members, including my hon. Friend, continue to raise this issue and hold the Church to account. The Church is undertaking detailed work to look towards seeking to go with a fully independent model. In the meantime, the Church is getting on with setting up the external scrutiny body, which is likely to be on a statutory basis, in order to give it depth and may require legislation. As I have said on many occasions in Church Commissioners questions, it is so important that the Church seeks to restore and rebuild trust, and that begins with ensuring that we have a credible model for safeguarding.

Rural Broadband

Luke Myer Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant]

That is an interesting intervention from the Chair! I think that Portcullis House is a matter for the Speaker and the Administration Committee. But there is a serious point here: in many cases if we could get to 5G standalone universally, some of these issues would not apply, because we would be able to do lots of things. The police, for instance, could have fully streamed services available through their 5G, and broadband might not be so immediately significant.

I am painfully aware that this is an issue I raised as a Back-Bench MP and baby MP all the time. Sometimes Ofcom’s reporting does not match people’s lived experience. It will say, for instance, that somewhere has 98% coverage from all four operators on mobile, but when people get there they cannot get a signal for love nor money. Often that is because of the way Ofcom has been reporting, which relies on 2 megabits per second. But with 2 megabits per second people cannot do anything. That goes back to the original point made by the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton—I will think of her as the hon. Member for Glastonbury Tor now, because it is shorter in my head.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

The data issue that the Minister is raising is precisely what we have been experiencing. Looking at it on paper, from the maps, the villages have fantastic signal and broadband, but that is just not people’s experience. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me recently to discuss this and for the roll-out we are going to see from the Government in East Cleveland.

[Chris Bryant]

I do not want Opposition Members to think that I have had an audience with a Labour Member and not with others. There is a universal service obligation on the Minister here. For most of the issues that have been raised, I think the most useful thing would be to book in a time for officials from Building Digital UK to go through both the mobile and broadband issues that relate to Members’ specific constituencies. We do have more precise maps, and we are able to talk all those issues through.

My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) is right. One of the first things I did when I became the Minister with responsibility for telecoms was to write to Ofcom to say, “You have to review the way that you look at these issues of reporting.” I am glad to say that Ofcom replied recently, and I am happy to put a copy of that letter in the Library so that everybody can see the correspondence we have had. But it is a good point; apart from anything else, mobile operators would quite like to know where there is good coverage—and good coverage should mean coverage that is actually any use to anybody, rather than something that theoretically says 4G but does not feel like 4G at all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Myer Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that; it is obviously of huge importance to his constituents and he is right to do so. As he knows, we are reviewing the programme. The programme that the last Government put in place for 40 new hospitals had a number of flaws: they were not all hospitals, they were not new, and they were not funded, so we are reviewing it. He is right to raise this matter, and I will ensure that he has a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss the development in his constituency. It will matter to his constituents who are listening to this, and it is important that they know where the failure lay.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s historic investment in carbon capture and storage technology for Teesside and Merseyside. This week I have been at the sector’s conference, and the feeling there is that this is a Government who are delivering after years of delay. Will the Prime Minister recognise the unique potential that Teesside has for jobs, prosperity and economic growth into the future?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, and you will have observed, Mr Speaker, that on Monday we had a very successful investment summit, with £63 billion coming into this country, jobs in every part of the UK, and a clear message from businesses that they are prepared to invest now under this new Labour Government. Part of that was a £22 billion commitment to carbon capture, usage and storage, creating the first clusters in the world including, as my hon. Friend points out, in various parts of the country. We will support those jobs and investment. We will grow our economy and rebuild our country.