Phone and Broadband Coverage (Herefordshire)

Rory Stewart Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Jesse Norman]

That is an interesting line of thought, which I have not heard of. I wish it could be said that providers were competing for the custom of my constituents, but at the moment they are not making themselves available in any degree at all in many areas, which is why we have so many partial not spots. In any case, the mobile infrastructure project, which is such a worthwhile potential scheme, only targets basic 2G services. Why can we not put 3G and 4G services on those masts to provide a cost-effective universal broadband service?

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

May I bring the attention of my hon. Friend and the Minister to a further, more fundamental problem? Before we have even entered the next stage of roll-out, we in Cumbria already face a heartbreaking problem. Even with plans in place from the county council and BT to roll out, it looks as though inflexibility in extending funding will mean that we may not be able to push beyond March to September, and we may end up with £3 million unspent. There needs to be a big push in Herefordshire to ensure flexibility in funding. Without that, even the existing plans will fail.

[Jesse Norman]

I am grateful for that advice. On the fixed line side, the situation is almost as bad. I was delighted when, in the company of the Minister, we had a great summit in Herefordshire in July 2010 and shortly thereafter won one of the first four fast broadband pilots. That was a great moment for the county. I know that the Minister—on whose growing beard I congratulate him; he has succeeded in the beard-anuary bet—has been tireless in his work on the project, as has Herefordshire council. The whole thing has been delayed by the need to get EU clearances, by slow procurement and by very slow implementation by BT. As a result, my county is still, nearly five years later, one of the very worst places in the UK for fixed line internet speeds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

As a Minister I am also responsible for supporting the national and local press, so I am obviously in favour of anything that we can do to support the Daily Mail. The serious point behind that advert is that we are rolling out superfast broadband throughout the country as part of our rural broadband improvement programme. Although we are using public money to fund it, it is a co-investment with Openreach. One reason why we are doing it is that sometimes, broadband is not commercially viable, and one way to make it more viable is if more people take it up. We have noticed that, even in rural areas where people have cried out for broadband, they are not taking it up when it is there, so we want to encourage take-up. It is worth saying to my hon. Friends that the more people take up broadband, particularly under the rural broadband programme, the more money we will get back under the contracts we have negotiated with Openreach and therefore the more money we can invest in rural broadband.

[Rory Stewart]

Given his commitment to superfast broadband, will my hon. Friend the Minister absolutely confirm that we in Cumbria will not find that inflexibility from the Department for Communities and Local Government and too narrow an interpretation of European Union guidelines leads to us being unable to spend the money allocated to us, thereby leaving tens of thousands of my constituents without broadband coverage?

[Mr Vaizey]

I absolutely take on board my hon. Friend’s point, which he made to me over the Christmas recess. I can confirm to him that my Secretary of State is in touch with the relevant Minister at DCLG. There is a technical point: European Union funds must be spent by the end of 2015. There is, therefore, a deadline by which such funds much be spent—currently March—to ensure that the time for spending them does not inadvertently overrun. We are making a confident case to DCLG that we can continue to spend the money throughout 2015 without any danger of spending it after the cut-off date at the end of 2015. My hon. Friend’s point is well made and the Department agrees. We are working hard with DCLG to come up with a solution because, when European money is on the table—I know that Government Members are all in favour of Europe—it is important that we spend it effectively on behalf of our constituents.