Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I think my hon. Friend also has a problem at one of her universities, which we are going to try to deal with as well. She has written to me, and I will write back as soon as possible, but perhaps we could short-cut that with a meeting. I am conscious that, for medical conditions, the resilience of someone’s connectivity is just as important as the day-to-day coverage.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his candour and honesty. He is one of the most effective, experienced and able Ministers in the Government. Having paid those compliments, can I encourage him to visit Shropshire, where there are still too many notspots? Perhaps one of the reasons is that this country has only four mobile network operators. Is it not time that we had more competition? Finally, is the shared rural network agreement likely to hit its targets by the end of this year?

[Chris Bryant]

The shared rural network will reach its targets. The right hon. Member makes a very good point, which is that, frankly, the connectivity that people think they are getting from Ofcom is simply not what they are actually getting. Their phone looks as though it has lots of bars and is saying 4G, but they cannot even download an app to park their car. We have to transform that across the whole of the UK. In the end, most of that is down to the industry, and I want to make sure that we remove some of the barriers to further investment in the industry to improve mobile connectivity for every single Member of the House.