Business of the House

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I would welcome a debate on employment, and, indeed, on social enterprises. I cannot promise such a debate immediately, but I know that the House would appreciate it.

The hon. Gentleman may be aware that, according to the latest data, the number of unemployed women has fallen by 61,000 to 1 million, or 6.7%. The number of women in employment rose by 104,000, or 0.3 percentage points, in the last quarter. More than half a million more women have become employed since the general election.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

A constituent of mine runs a rural business which depends on internet access to Government agricultural schemes, and next week is the busiest week of his year. However, he has been without internet access for nearly six weeks, since 28 December, when the problem was reported to TalkTalk, his provider. Despite numerous calls to both TalkTalk and BT, nothing has been done. Only BT Openreach can fix the problem, but that organisation is not on the phone. Can the Leader of the House advise me on how my constituent can get urgent attention so that his line fault can be fixed, short of going to the main road and flagging down an Openreach van?

[Mr Lansley]

I can tell my hon. Friend that, on more than one occasion in my constituency, flagging down an Openreach engineer’s van is exactly what my constituents have done.

I know that my hon. Friend will raise this issue with BT herself, but, exceptionally, I shall refer our exchange to BT and ask it to respond directly to her. Under the programme for extending superfast broadband access, contracts are now rolling out across the country, and we are trying to make that happen as quickly as possible. However, we need to ensure that we achieve not just notional access to superfast broadband, but reliable, good-quality access. I entirely take my hon. Friend’s point.