Rural Phone and Broadband Connectivity

Rory Stewart Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and to see in their seats so many parliamentary patrons of the rural fair share campaign. Although we are talking today about broadband and mobile coverage, we must see the matter in context. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) on securing this debate and the Backbench Committee on its work.

Let us talk about context. It is a pity that we have no one other than the Opposition Whip and the shadow Minister in their place to hear this. The context is that people in rural areas are, on average, poorer than people in urban areas. They earn less; they have fewer services; they pay higher levels of council tax; and they suffer from lower funding of health, education, police and fire services. To add to that disadvantage, they find that they are in the 5% or 10%—whatever percentage it is in some grand number—that does not get the good thing that we are talking about. That merely compounds a disadvantage that is to be found in so many areas already.

What we need to do from the rural interest point of view is recognise that rurality is a need in the same way that deprivation is a need. It drives cost in the way that deprivation does, and we must make the case. We must have a broad understanding of the needs of rural communities. Let me say to the Opposition Whip, who, unfortunately for him, is in his place, that when we were discussing the Government’s programme to bring decent broadband service to rural areas, one of his colleagues said that it would mean faster internet shopping for millionaires—he went on to say faster internet shopping for wealthy people. That is a misconception of the disadvantage and low income of so many people in rural areas. They are removed from services and removed from access. The one thing that they had hoped would close that gap is digital technology, but all too often that is closed to them as well. That is the context.

[Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

Given that the fundamental challenge of rural areas is the barrier of distance, surely what we need to emphasise is that there is nothing more powerful than the technology of broadband and mobile in overcoming that barrier and in bringing rural areas all the opportunities of networked lives.