Mike Kane
Main Page: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point that out. Like me, she represents an area with enormous rural parts where the mobile signal is often patchy, shall we say, at best. It is absolutely true that in cities it can perhaps be less serious if there is no working telephone connection, because mobile coverage is better—not perfect, but better—but in villages there is often no mobile signal at all. I am sure that we all share the frustration that our constituents do not get the satisfaction that they are looking for from BT until they turn to us.
As I was saying, I welcome the intent expressed by Ofcom, but I ask the Minister to ensure that it is delivered promptly and with absolute rigour, and that Ofcom publicises widely the manner in which customers might communicate with it about faults, the length of time that it takes for repairs to be done and, importantly, transparency of information.
It would not be a debate in Westminster Hall if I did not have a quick trip around the geography of my constituency and the myriad faults and problems that have occurred.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. Does she agree that the trouble is that in 2015 BT reached all its targets as prescribed by Ofcom? Is there perhaps something wrong with the targets prescribed by Ofcom and not just with BT?
Caroline Nokes
The hon. Gentleman’s point is very important, and actually we want the targets to be much higher. We live in a world where consumer demands are getting greater by the day. We expect incredibly high levels of customer service, and companies such as BT should be able to respond to that and have stretch targets to make sure that they are delivering the sort of communication services that we can reasonably expect in the 21st century.