Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Stephen Timms and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(7 years, 12 months ago)
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Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
7. What assessment he has made of the potential benefits for the UK digital economy of completing the EU digital single market.
The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)
As I was saying, we have a great broadband Britain in a great European Union. Britain sits at the centre of the digital single market, which, if it is implemented, will increase GDP for Europe by 3%, or some £300 billion.
Stephen Timms
This time, I think the Minister is on to something. The UK is Europe’s leading digital economy, and we have the most to gain from the digital single market. That is why 70% of techUK members and 96% of the members of the Creative Industries Federation want us to remain in the European Union. Will the Minister have a go at persuading his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State how damaging it would be for digital jobs in the UK if we left the EU?
Mr Vaizey
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has a mind of his own, and he quite rightly often takes the view that it is not worth listening to me, which is probably why he is such a successful Secretary of State. I do wish he would listen to me on this issue, however, because tech and digital companies do benefit from our membership of the European Union and they will continue to thrive if we stay in the EU.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Stephen Timms and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
T9. Does the Minister plan to increase competition in the superfast broadband market following last week’s debate that highlighted lack of competition as the main source of current frustrations with the roll-out?
Superfast Broadband
Debate between Stephen Timms and Lord Vaizey of Didcot
The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)
It gives me great pleasure to respond to this important Back-Bench debate and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) on securing it.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) on becoming the Opposition spokesman. I have always regarded her as, in effect, the shadow spokesman on this matter. Rather like the new leader of the Labour party and shadow Chancellor, I have left some very unhelpful quotations over the past five years in which I have praised her knowledge and expertise. I obviously resile from them all now that she is the official Opposition spokesman.
I was asked earlier whether this debate felt like groundhog day. I have to say that I have welcomed every single speech from those on the Government Benches—they have been brilliant, original and effective, and have displayed yet again the huge range of talent that exists on our Benches in representing our constituents and putting their issues on the agenda. The point when I thought it was groundhog day was when the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central gave her speech. It is 2015 and the Labour party is still talking about a policy that it came up with in 2009. That policy was uncosted, required a tax that did not exist and contained no plans, yet it would have brought only 2 megabits to the country. Quite rightly, when the first Conservative Secretary of State came in, those plans were torn up because we knew that the country wanted 24 megabits. It wanted superfast broadband, which is what we have delivered.
While we have heard a lot of fine speeches from Government Members, I have to mark out the speech by the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) for sheer brass neck. It is astonishing that he talks about BT’s failure, when it was his Government that presided over the digital region project in south Yorkshire, which went bust, resulting in £50 million of taxpayers’ money being written off. The only superfast broadband project that started under his Government was the one in Cornwall, which relied on European money and involved BT. Cornwall is now one of the best connected regions in Europe.
The right hon. Gentleman accused me, because I happened to say that I might be mildly sceptical about the break-up of BT, of cosying up to corporate interests. Of course, those who are calling for the break-up of BT include such small businesses run out of a back bedroom as Sky, Vodafone and TalkTalk. It is absolutely astonishing.
Stephen Timms
The accusation about cosying up to corporate interests came from the Financial Times, not me. Does the Minister not accept, with the benefit of hindsight, that he should have ensured that some of the public subsidy went to a provider other than BT?
Mr Vaizey
The right hon. Gentleman cannot say that BT has me over a barrel when it has just paid back £129 million seven years early, thanks to the contracts we negotiated.
Let us look at those contracts. We said that we would deliver superfast broadband to 90% of homes and businesses in the country by the end of 2015. That is exactly what we will do. Three contracts have finished and 38 are ahead of schedule. I remind hon. Members that the reason BT bid for the contracts and that Virgin, for example, did not was that the state aid conditions required open access. Therefore, only companies that were prepared to see their networks used by their competitors were going to bid for the contracts. That is why BT was the only bidder in town.
Many of my hon. Friends have talked about Connecting Devon and Somerset, which did not sign a phase 2 contract with BT. I have sat in a room with hon. Friends and listened to officials from Devon and Somerset telling me that BT was not delivering. I now hear from my hon. Friends that BT is delivering.
As I have said, we have got £129 million back, thanks to the contracts. We are now going further. We have said that we will get to 95% of homes and businesses by the end of 2017. I am confident that we will deliver that as well. New technology and competition will help. Virgin has announced £3 billion of investment to compete with BT’s roll-out. It will get to 3 million to 4 million homes. Sky and TalkTalk are building a network in York to see how it can roll out fibre to premises.
That is a good example of how councils have to partner with telecoms providers, because they have to help with the planning. It is important that we keep the costs down. I hear people complain about the lack of broadband in central London, but Kensington and Chelsea refused to give planning permission to a single green box of BT’s for two years because it did not like the design. Councils have to get with it. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) said, when we want to put up a mobile mast, we can suddenly find that the landowner has withdrawn their permission because of local objections. If we are going to build this infrastructure, there has to be a bit of give and take. Councils and local communities have to accept that the infrastructure has to be built. We might need to have taller masts and some structures in rural settings.
Now that BT has announced the roll-out of its G.fast technology, I am confident that 10 million homes will get speeds of 300 megabits or more over the next five years. We have the fastest roll-out and take-up of 4G in the world. We inherited a stalled auction programme from the last Labour Government that we had to resurrect and we are now back on track.
It was appalling to hear the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central say that we should have a policy like Australia’s, which is massively over budget and involved a huge legal battle over many years effectively to nationalise the main telecoms operator. That pretty much cost the last Labour Government in Australia the election. We will not go down that road—that is for sure.
My hon. Friends are, of course, interested in the remaining 5%. I have written to all hon. Members setting out where broadband has got to in their constituencies in the last quarter, how many homes are being connected and, importantly, how many homes are not being connected. I am prepared to sit down with all my hon. Friends and visit their constituencies over the next six months to discuss areas that are not getting broadband, so that we can work together to deliver it.