Rural Broadband

Paul Monaghan Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Dr Paul Monaghan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on securing this debate and on his election as Chair of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I was interested in his comments, I agree with many of them and I share the social and business concerns that he has highlighted.

As the Member for the UK’s northernmost mainland constituency, I have seen some progress in the delivery of broadband in rural areas. There is still much to do, and I think that we all share the view that the internet, and broadband in particular, has the potential to change our lives, especially in rural areas, where shrinking distances can have life-changing impacts.

A huge amount of business in the modern world relies on the internet, for research, advertising, selling and communicating. By letting people work remotely or run small businesses from their home, broadband is clearly good for local economies. For all those reasons, we in the Scottish National party believe that there should be a universal service obligation for broadband, and we are working towards that objective. The Scottish Government, through their Digital Scotland superfast broadband programme, are working to deliver 95% superfast broadband coverage in Scotland by the end of 2017. The initiative has already delivered £400 million in investment to extend fibre broadband access to areas where commercial organisations simply would not otherwise go.

The programme consists of two regional projects, one covering the highlands and islands and the other covering the rest of Scotland. Both those contracts were awarded to BT in 2013. The Digital Scotland roll-out has covered more than 394,000 premises since it started and is more than halfway to its target of making the technology available to 750,000 homes and workplaces by the end of the contract period.

Just two weeks ago, the new Scotland rural development programme broadband grant scheme opened for applications from community-led broadband organisations such as GigaPlus Argyll, a ground-breaking scheme in which numerous hard-to-reach communities have come together to procure superfast broadband services from commercial providers. We support such initiatives, and to date the SNP Government have made more than £16.5 million available for similar community broadband projects, in addition to the £400 million Digital Scotland superfast broadband programme and the larger £13.4 billion Scottish rural development programme for 2014 and 2020.

The Scottish National party has a strong track record of supporting Scotland’s rural and remote communities. We will continue to identify further opportunities to boost Scotland’s rural economies. I would like to see the UK Government support those efforts and implement complementary actions to ensure that rural communities benefit fully from the roll-out of broadband and 4G technologies in addition to mobile connectivity in its broadest sense. I am aware that the UK Government have committed to ensuring that 95% of households can access superfast broadband at a rate of 24 megabits per second by 2017. I applaud that commitment, just as I applaud the Scottish Government’s enhanced strategic approach.

However, the time has come for the UK Government to be creative and innovative in their thinking, and to prepare now for the future, particularly the future of our remote and rural areas. The UK Government must begin to consider issuing licences and providing the necessary financial incentives and support to encourage providers with the technological capacity to deliver broadband to rural communities that might never receive broadband services through conventional routes, in order to allow those communities to exercise their civic rights fully and participate fully in our society.

The UK Government must consider the supply opportunities for the 5% of households that are unlikely to have broadband before 2017. It is now time to consider high-quality service, measured in terms of speed, volume and latency, and to commit to ensuring that 100% of households have the opportunity to access broadband at a minimum of, for example, 20 megabits per second with a latency of not more than 30 milliseconds. I urge the UK Government to deliver on the Scottish Government’s call for a universal service obligation for broadband and to recognise that this crucial technology must now be considered a basic utility, one essential for those in remote and rural areas if they are to exercise their civic rights.

It seems clear that broadband will not reach all communities in the immediate future, and that there is consensus in this Chamber on the fact that the UK Government must now intervene to secure the necessary investment in our rural communities. I support the questions raised by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and what he will do to take forward the objective of establishing a universal service obligation for broadband.