Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to help people to prepare for the digital switchover in rural areas.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government has acted to ensure any risks arising from the industry-led migration of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) are mitigated for all customers. Major communication providers and network operators signed voluntary charters in December 2023 and March 2024. To enhance protections for vulnerable customers, the Government secured new commitments from the telecoms industry in November 2024, including further safeguards set out in the non-voluntary migrations checklist.
One of the safeguards is to ensure that customers that have been identified as vulnerable, are provided with a battery back-up solution that provides over one hour of access to emergency services in the event of a power outage. This includes those who are landline dependent (e.g. because they live in a mobile not-spot). Many providers are going beyond these safeguards, including batteries that last 4-7 hours.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of changes to the planned timetable for gigabit rollout on rural areas.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
According to the independent website, Thinkbroadband.com, 89% of premises in the UK already have access to a gigabit-capable broadband connection. The government is still committed to ensuring 99% of premises receive gigabit coverage by 2032.
The funding, committed over the Spending Review covering the period 2026/27 to 2029/30, will support the delivery of all existing Project Gigabit contracts, voucher projects and areas currently in procurement. It reconfirms the government’s confidence in suppliers' ability to deliver the rollout.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the time taken to implement gigabit rollout in rural areas on those areas.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
More than £2.4 billion of Project Gigabit contracts have already been signed to connect over one million more premises with gigabit-capable broadband. These premises fall predominantly in rural areas. As of the end of March 2025, over 1.2 million premises had been upgraded to gigabit-capable broadband through government-funded programmes.
The connections delivered by Project Gigabit benefit rural and hard to reach communities, helping households and businesses access the digital connectivity needed to transform lives and drive economic growth.
We are committed to ensuring 99% of premises receive gigabit coverage by 2032.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what progress his Department has made on gigabit voucher take-up in rural areas.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme provides a subsidy of up to £4,500 towards the cost of installing gigabit-capable broadband to homes and businesses via local community broadband projects.
As of March 2024, 296,400 premises were able to take-up a gigabit-capable broadband connection as a result of the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme, the vast majority of which are in rural areas.
We continue to support broadband suppliers to deliver voucher projects that have been approved as part of Project Gigabit.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to improve public sector delivery with (a) technologies and (b) AI.
Answered by Feryal Clark
We are taking significant steps to improve and modernise public sector delivery with (a) technology and (b) Artificial Intelligence (AI).
(a) Our "Cloud First" policy mandates that departments default to public cloud solutions, whilst the National Digital Exchange (NDX) Cloud Component acts as a blueprint for transforming government digital and data services. Additionally, the Digital Backbone aims to introduce the capabilities needed to connect fragmented services and allow public bodies to share software solutions. These initiatives will enhance efficiency and reduce duplication, saving time and reducing spend.
(b) We recognise the transformative potential of AI. We carried out a landmark AI trial involving 20,000 Civil Servants across 12 departments to assess the productivity of M365 Copilot, which found that civil servants can save on average 26 minutes per day (circa two weeks annually) using AI assistants. Furthermore, the Incubator for AI (i.AI) works to explore and develop AI solutions for the public sector.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to improve mobile reliability in rural areas.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
4G geographic coverage from at least one mobile network operator (MNO) has now reached over 95% of the UK landmass, but our ambition is for all populated areas of the UK to benefit from high quality, reliable, 5G standalone coverage by 2030; this includes rural areas.
We continue to work closely with the MNOs and are committed to ensuring we have the right policy and regulatory framework in place to support investment into mobile networks and competition in the market, while Ofcom’s improved online coverage checker, which will go live in the second half of June, will help consumers identify the MNOs with the best coverage in their area.
We are also collaborating with Ofcom to carry out further analysis on mobile network resilience, following a consultation that invited input from the industry and the public on power backup provision.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to help increase mobile phone coverage.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The government wants all areas of the UK to benefit from reliable and good quality mobile coverage.
4G geographic coverage from at least one mobile operator has now reached over 95% of the UK landmass through the Shared Rural Network. The programme is continuing to deliver 4G mobile connectivity to places where there is either limited or no coverage.
Our ambition is for all populated areas having higher-quality standalone 5G by 2030, and we are committed to ensuring we have the right policy and regulatory framework to support investment and competition. As part of this work, the government intends to reform the planning system to make it easier to build digital infrastructure. We have also increased funding for our 5G Innovation Region programme to £43 million to drive adoption of standalone 5G across key sectors.
We will continue working with Ofcom to ensure that their coverage reporting is more accurate.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether he plans to allocate additional funding towards projects that improve mobile connectivity in (a) rural and (b) hard to reach areas.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
We are working with telecoms companies to reduce poor mobile signal in rural areas. The Shared Rural Network is already delivering new 4G coverage to places where there is either limited or no 4G coverage at all. There are currently no plans to allocate additional funding beyond this.
Our ambition is for all populated areas to have higher-quality standalone 5G by 2030, and we are working with the industry to deliver this. We are driving the adoption of standalone 5G across key sectors through our £36m 5G Innovation Regions programme.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether he has had recent discussions with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the use of artificial intelligence in farming and agriculture.
Answered by Feryal Clark
AI is a general-purpose technology, with a wide array of applications. The government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan sets out how we will make the most of this transformative technology by laying the foundations for AI growth, driving adoption and building UK capability at the frontier.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology engages regularly across government departments, including the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, to understand how they are considering AI-related policy opportunities within their remit.
In addition, Innovate UK’s BridgeAI programme supports AI adoption across four sectors, of which agriculture is one.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what recent steps he has taken to help improve broadband connectivity in rural areas.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government is committed to the rollout of fast, reliable broadband to all parts of the UK. The latest data from the independent website Thinkbroadband.com shows that over 85% of UK premises can now access a gigabit-capable connection.
To improve coverage further, we currently have over 30 Project Gigabit contracts in place to bring fast, reliable broadband to over 1 million more homes and businesses. In the last few months, the first premises have been connected as part of Project Gigabit contracts in areas including Norfolk, West Yorkshire and South Wiltshire, and the build has now started in earnest in other parts of the country too.