Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Richard Graham and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

Failure—[Interruption.] As usual, my hon. Friends have anticipated my answer: there, on the Labour Benches, is the picture of failure. We have had to write off £50 million from the failed Labour scheme to deliver broadband in South Yorkshire. If a Labour Government had been elected, they would be two years behind us in the roll-out of superfast broadband; they had a target of 2017 to get to 90%—we have already reached it.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

5. What estimate he has made of the UK’s balance of trade in services.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Richard Graham and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

1. What recent progress has been made on improving access to broadband in urban areas.

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

I am very pleased to tell you, Mr Speaker, that the broadband roll-out is going extremely well, particularly in our cities. I am also particularly pleased at the success of our business voucher scheme, under which 50,000 businesses have benefited.

[Richard Graham]

I make no apology for returning to the thorny issue of the frustrations of e-poverty in the city of Gloucester. In 2013, BT promised to upgrade box No. 90. In 2014, it said it was sorry for the delay, but that it would still happen. In 2015, it changed its mind. In 2016, at a meeting with me earlier this week, it asked, “Could you send us the original emails saying we would ever upgrade this box?” At what stage is a commitment from BT a real commitment that will not result in constituents turning around to me and saying, “You lied”?

[Mr Vaizey]

I am obviously not BT’s spokesman, but I hope BT is listening to what my hon. Friend has to say. He is a fantastic constituency MP. While I am very proud of the success of our roll-out programme, it is incumbent on BT to get its act together in terms of customer service and delivering on its promises.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Richard Graham and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Thursday 21st January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

T3. The long-serving Minister responsible for arts and broadband will share my disappointment that despite his welcome promise to ensure that no home in the country has broadband speeds of less than 2 megabits per second, there are apparently parts of my constituency in Gloucester that have still not reached that speed. I have raised one particular area and problem with BT since 2013. First BT promised to upgrade the cabinet, then it failed to do so, and now it says that it is commercially unviable. Will the Minister meet me and celebrate his long tenure by resolving this problem?

[Mr Vaizey]

I will happily meet my hon. Friend at any point. I am pleased that at least 93% or 94% of his constituents have superfast broadband. Of course, it is more difficult because of state aid rules to subsidise broadband in cities, but I will certainly meet my hon. Friend and discuss the particular issues he faces.