Broadband

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on securing the debate. I want to give a different perspective on the issue of broadband coverage, coming as I do from one of the most concentrated urban areas in Scotland. At first sight, it might seem strange that someone from a constituency that has superfast broadband to a degree that colleagues would be envious of would complain about lack of coverage, but the fact is that even in my very urban constituency, many areas, covering thousands of homes and businesses, do not have superfast broadband at the moment and do not seem to have any prospect of getting it any time soon.

The projection is that, by 2017, 98% of people will have superfast broadband. That sounds very good and, if it happens, I will obviously be pleased about it, but many of my constituents who are currently affected are somewhat sceptical as to whether that figure will actually be reached and whether some of the current not spots in my constituency—they also exist in other urban areas—will have that level of provision.

We have the problems that I have described in urban areas such as mine because of a fundamental flaw in the arrangements for the roll-out of superfast broadband. It applies not just in my constituency, but in many other urban areas up and down the country. It is the basic problem that Government schemes and funding arrangements do not apply to areas where, it is believed, superfast broadband can be deployed commercially and therefore does not need to be subsidised. However, what then happens is that BT—it normally is BT—decides that it is commercially unviable to provide superfast broadband in certain areas, and nothing seems to change to make that move a little more quickly. It is Catch-22: these areas are commercially viable, so they do not get the subsidy—the financial arrangements—but we are told that it is commercially unviable for the market to provide in those areas.

I have lots of examples from my constituency. You will be relieved to hear that I will not go through them all today, Sir Alan, but they involve some incredibly densely populated areas. Quite often in new build developments of hundreds of flats, it is for some reason not regarded as commercially viable to provide superfast broadband. Of course, there are business locations in the area as well. We find instances in which the cabinets are there, but there is no indication of when superfast broadband will be provided. Even more frustratingly, we have a number of locations where the fibre-optic cable is in the street, running past particular houses, blocks of flats and blocks of offices, but there is no indication whether those properties will actually get superfast broadband, although someone down the street will obviously do so.

In Edinburgh city centre, the heavy concentration of commercial activity means that the residential properties are relatively dispersed, so again it has not been regarded as commercially viable to provide superfast broadband to those properties. There is something wrong when houses in the centre of some of our most concentrated urban areas still do not have a clear date for obtaining superfast broadband. I have raised the issue time and again with various levels of government—UK Government, Scottish Government and local government—and all I seem to get is an assurance that it will be all right eventually, but the problems persist. I have raised some concerns with the Minister in the past, but I urge him to look again at some of the cases in my constituency. I have had more cases over the past few weeks, and I am happy to provide him with the details.

I also want the Minister and his counterparts in the devolved Administrations to look at ways of ensuring that as many properties as possible in the areas in which contracts are rolled out have the opportunity to access superfast broadband. That should not be beyond the wit of Government, regulators or companies. If the contractual arrangements for roll-out are too far advanced in many parts of the country, as I suspect they may be, it should be the responsibility of Government to look at schemes to fill the gaps. We want to find some way of ensuring that not spots in urban areas, just as in rural areas, get superfast broadband. That is important not only because people enjoy having it, but because it is, in many cases, essential for business, essential for communication and essential in a world in which more and more of the transactions of everyday life—including contact with Government, both local and central—are carried out online. People who do not have access to superfast broadband will lose out, and that needs to be addressed in urban areas as well as in rural areas, which have different problems but which suffer from the issues that affect us all.