Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

15. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of coverage and quality of broadband provision for SMEs.

[The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

I will carry on from where I left off, and explain that broadband for business is going well, and we anticipate that about 80% of businesses will have access to it by the end of 2017. We have passed our 90% target for broadband for the UK as a whole.

[Paula Sherriff]

I thank the Minister for his response, but my constituent in Upper Denby is struggling to run a business with broadband speeds of no more than 1.8 megabits. He is not due to get superfast broadband until July 2017 at the earliest. Broadband in 2016 is a necessity, not a luxury. Will the Minister make a commitment to escalate the superfast broadband programme, so that businesses in my constituency can operate on a level playing field with their competitors?

[Mr Vaizey]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point and I am pleased that her constituency will achieve levels of 96% broadband coverage. The point she makes, which I would like to emphasise to the Opposition spokeswoman, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), is why we have brought forward Labour’s target by two years. We have achieved by the end of 2015 what Labour planned to achieve by the end of 2017.