Broadband

Debate between Tessa Munt and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I am afraid that I do not share the optimism of my colleague the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) about what will happen in Devon and Somerset. The Government’s own figures show that only 41% of residents and businesses in Somerset have access to superfast broadband. That goes nowhere near meeting the needs of local people or rural businesses in my constituency. Effective, reliable and affordable broadband is essential in the 21st century, and it is fairly shaming that we can in no way compare ourselves with places such as Korea, which seems to have magnificent broadband coverage. It is a bit of a shame to have to say that. [Interruption.] Did the Minister want to say something?

[Mr Vaizey]

I did, but I have changed my mind. I am just going to check the facts.

[Tessa Munt]

Okay. Effective, reliable and affordable broadband is essential to keep people connected and ensure that our rural economy prospers. I do not understand how providing superfast rural broadband appears to mean strengthening the broadband in towns, where we have some coverage already, while coverage peters out as we move into rural areas. Surely, the whole point of rural broadband should have been to start in areas where there is little or no coverage and work back towards the places that have at least some coverage. The whole thing seems to be back to front, as far as I am concerned.

The Minister is always very optimistic and loyal about this project, and I would be delighted to share his optimism, but I have no idea how the final 59%, let alone the final 5%, of people in Somerset will be anywhere near getting some sort of decent service by 2020. The idea of getting to 90% by 2015 and 95% by 2017 is an utter dream. I would also like the Minister to tell me what superfast broadband is. Every time I have asked BT the question, it has fluffed the answer. I want to know what people in my patch can expect by way of an upload speed and a download speed.

[Mr Vaizey]

I am now ready to intervene. May I briefly put on the record that as far as I am aware, 21,000 premises in the hon. Lady’s constituency will be covered under phase 1, which is getting to 90%? That is effectively the same amount as were covered commercially. The figure of 21,000 and the term superfast broadband are audited, so we do not say that those premises are reached unless they are getting speeds of 24 megabits a second.

[Tessa Munt]

I thank the Minister for that clarification. If he has information about where that will happen, that leads me to my next question. Every time I have asked where the not spots are, I have been given all kinds of maps showing different colours. Most of my constituency is under consideration, or somebody is looking at the plumbing, or whatever. It seems unlikely that anyone will be able to make any headway in those areas. If the Minister is that sure, however, I am delighted.

I would be very grateful to have that information from him so that people who have no coverage can make alternative arrangements. I have heard reports, from my part of the country and others, of parish councils attempting to find out what is going on, and arranging for their own parishes to go online through some alternative to BT. Just when they have been about to hit the button and go for it, BT has suddenly come back to them and said, “Actually, we are going to do your bit after all.” That is not very competitive. If BT is not going to be up front, it is not fair for it to come back to communities that are trying to make their own arrangements and say, “Don’t do that, because we are coming in anyway.” That is slightly anti-competitive practice, and it does not look good, even if it is the truth.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and various other parts of Government, such as the Rural Payments Agency, have moved to digital. However, according to the figures that we have been given by the Country Land and Business Association, more than 10% of the countryside is without access to any broadband, and 12% has no digital footprint whatsoever. The trouble is that our suppliers expect farm businesses to be fully interactive online. Even though the basic infrastructure is not in place and Government-funded schemes are not delivering to remote and difficult-to-connect communities, they still have to use the various basic internet systems. Farmers find it difficult to innovate and to use new farming technology and software, which has to be downloaded from the internet. They also find it difficult to comply with other Government regulations by, for example, submitting VAT returns, getting vehicles taxed and processing animal tagging.

In my constituency, accessing the internet is also vital for jobseeker’s allowance claimants. Those who are looking for work, for whatever reason, have to show that they have applied for every possible job opportunity online. If they do not have internet access, it is absolutely impossible to meet the criteria, and their benefits may be stopped. Some of my constituents have to travel some distance to use the internet. They have to go to Bridgwater or to Wells, and there is little public transport. For people who are challenged financially and have little money because they have no job, but who are trying to find themselves work, it is incredibly difficult to compete and get the jobs that they need and want.

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[Tessa Munt]

The hon. Gentleman has taken the words right out of my mouth. I hope the Minister will be in a position to address our concerns.

[Mr Vaizey]

I am happy to.

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

Order. Minister, quite a few Members want to speak, and the debate should not be turned into a question and answer session between you and one Back Bencher or another. It is much more important that we have as full a debate as we can. In the generous amount of time that remains, you will get an opportunity to reply to all the questions put by Members on both sides of the Chamber.

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[Mr Vaizey]

I can give my hon. Friend an unequivocal answer—yes. Our latest audit found that the scheme cost is, I think, £92 million below what we expected. With clawback provisions—if more people take up broadband than expected and, therefore, more revenue comes in—we find that we can go further. In Cornwall, for example, a scheme started under the previous Government had a target of 80% coverage, but with the same money we will now reach 95%.

The hon. Member for Hartlepool quoted the National Audit Office report from, I think, 18 months ago, which was when I had to tour the studios with the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) to contest her conclusions. That report got wall-to-wall media coverage, but last month’s NAO report, which gave the scheme a clean bill of health and said that we had made a lot of progress, got absolutely no coverage at all. In fact, I wrote down a quote from the right hon. Lady. She said that there

“does seem to have been some progress, which we…welcome”.

Coming from her, that is a massive vote of confidence.

[Tessa Munt]

Will the Minister answer a simple question for me? He has already talked about return on investment. If people have contracted with a company to receive broadband at a certain speed but they then suffer slow speeds, poor connections and constant drop-out, they receive no return on their investment. How can they get their bills adjusted to reflect what they receive, because there is a definite variance between what they contracted for and what they get?

[Mr Vaizey]

That is an interesting point. If I wanted to dodge the hon. Lady’s question, I would say that that was a contractual matter between BT and its customer, or indeed any other provider and its customer, but it is an important point that I shall take seriously. We have already tackled relatively straightforward issues, such as stopping companies from advertising their speeds as the fastest speed that could be possibly received. We have asked them to advertise only the average speed that people are likely to receive. However, I want to look at whether we can have different levels of contracts for people who clearly receive slower speeds.

[Tessa Munt]

I thank the Minister very much indeed. Will he do that in the next few weeks, while he has still got the power?

[Mr Vaizey]

I know that the hon. Lady has nothing but admiration for my abilities. That is certainly something that I want to look at and, given that I said that in an open debate, she can be assured that we will look at and discuss that with BT and others.

Let me go back to basics—it is good to see one of the leading members of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), returning to his seat, as I have already prayed in aid the National Audit Office. No doubt, he will seek to correct that position.

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[Mr Vaizey]

I really fail to understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make, and I will not invite him to make it again or we could be here all night. In his constituency, 26,000 homes will get coverage under phase 1 of the programme, and nearly 2,500 more homes will get it under phase 2, so we are talking about 28,500 homes in his constituency that will get coverage.

The programme is run by the local authority. To make a blunt point, we are seeking bang for our taxpayer buck. To pluck a figure from the air, if it will cost £50,000 to connect a village of 20 people and one of 200 people, which group will be chosen? That is potentially a political decision as well. One might take a view that connecting those 20 people is better, in the sense that they are at the end of the queue, so let us bring them forward. However, that is something that we also left to local authorities, because we wanted them to partner this programme. It was not for us in the centre of Whitehall to decide between village A and village B.

[Tessa Munt]

Can the Minister comment on what appears to be utterly anti-competitive behaviour? I have written down in my notes some fairly serious allegations, and this story has been covered in both the Western Morning News and the Western Daily Press. It is claimed that BT said it would withdraw from the tender process for the contract for Connecting Devon and Somerset if CDS did not use the Broadband Delivery UK framework and run a closed tender process in which BT was the only bidder.

[Mr Vaizey]

I will happily look at evidence the hon. Lady has of any anti-competitive practices by BT. I will try to unpack what she is alleging. First, BT is free to bid or not to bid for these contracts. We should remember that when we are busily kicking BT, which we do in all these debates; for a quiet life, BT might not bid for any of these contracts.

[Tessa Munt]

As I understand it, in the national parks, parts of Exmoor and Dartmoor have been parcelled off, so that the contracts for those areas can be tendered competitively. Ironically the suppliers there have to confirm that they are not participating in any “anti-competitive activities” and they have to sign a “certificate of non-collusion”—

[Mr Vaizey]

I get the point. I am running out of time, so let me simply say that BT is free to bid or not to bid, and it is free to say to a contracting authority that it wants to use the framework contract to save time and make life more efficient, and that if the authority is going to use a different contract it will not bid. That is entirely up to BT and I do not think that is anti-competitive behaviour.

Obviously, we have a debate—a constant to-ing and fro-ing—with BT, because we audit its figures and invoices. Again, it is worth making the point that BT invests this money up front; it does not receive any money from the Government or the taxpayer until it has done the work. It is not handed a cheque to meander kindly down the road and do the work when it feels like it, and if there is some good football on the telly on Wednesday night, it will not do the work. It does the work and then it gets paid.

As I say, we audit those figures and they show value for money. BT is a national provider, and therefore it was in a very good position to win those contracts. However, there is competition throughout the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tessa Munt and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Thursday 16th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

I am sure that pizzas were not being delivered last night to the Labour women’s dinner, which I gather took place at the Imperial War museum. No doubt the hon. Lady will want to join me in congratulating the museum, which is so ably led by Di Lees, on its magnificent refurbishment, which has introduced the world war one galleries.

I am pleased to confirm that we are bang on target for our roll-out of superfast broadband. We expect to deliver it to 90% of premises by early 2016, but I expect that, given the pace of the programme, we shall exceed that target. The mobile infrastructure project is a pioneering project which has already brought many benefits to rural areas, and I am pleased to see that the super-connected voucher scheme is well under way.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I spoke to the Minister again in July about broadband in my area, and showed him the map of the proposed coverage. It seems that exchanges just a couple of miles away from main roads such as the A38 and the A370, where fibre-optic cables were laid years ago, cannot be connected, and—to use BT Openreach’s description—the “poor-quality cables” around new cabinets that have been fitted in places such as Wells mean that previously generally reliable but slow services running at 750 kilobits have become desperately unreliable and pathetically slow, at about 250 kilobits. There is no point in changing the provider, because all the signals are carried over the same wires. What do my constituents have to do to get superfast broadband?

[Mr Vaizey]

We are delivering superfast broadband to Devon and Somerset, and under our programme, which is worth some £50 million, it will reach 90% of premises. However, as my hon. Friend says, this is a very complex engineering project which involves very complex work. I am particularly happy to praise the work that BT has done in many areas where it is already well ahead of schedule.

Gender Balance in Broadcasting

Debate between Tessa Munt and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

I am grateful for the chance to respond to this important debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) has a formidable reputation for bringing difficult issues to the House and raising subjects that others might fear to bring to public prominence. The representation of women across the media, but particularly at the BBC, is an important issue that is worth addressing.

Many of the statistics that my hon. Friend quoted are very much a cause for concern. Some of them came from a recently established campaign group called Sound Women that aims to support and celebrate the work of women in UK radio. It published an important report called “Tuning out”—which one can find on its website, soundwomen.co.uk—that was commissioned by the training agency Skillset, which I work with closely to promote skills in the creative industries. The report found that women are less likely to make it to the top of radio, making up just a third of senior managers and less than a fifth at board level. It will not surprise the House to hear that women in radio are more qualified than men, with three quarters having degrees, compared with less than two thirds of men. However, women are still paid less, by an average of £2,200 a year.

Older women with children are less well represented, as the hon. Member for Wells (Tessa Munt) said. In fact, a lot of women abandon the radio industry after the age of about 35. As was also pointed out by the hon. Lady, who supported my hon. Friend so ably in this debate, out of 50 BBC local radio breakfast shows, only one is presented by a woman. Some 84% of reporters and guests on Radio 4’s “Today” programme are men. Indeed, on 5 July 2011, one would have had to wait from 6.15 am until 8.20 am to hear one female contributor, alongside the 27 male contributors to that programme. My hon. Friend therefore raises an important point.

Having raised those issues of concern, let me make it clear that I am nevertheless an admirer and respecter of the BBC, which forms the cornerstone of public service broadcasting in this country. Personally, I for one think it is the finest public service broadcaster in the world today. We want to ensure that the BBC remains a national asset, but as my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, if it is to maintain its pre-eminence and prominence, it must address the issue of gender imbalance. We are well aware of the criticism that too many of the presenters at the BBC are men, and of the calls for more women presenters.

I want to make an important point; I am sure that my hon. Friend will regard it as a cop-out, but I am going to make it anyway. It is that the BBC is independent of the Government, and I do not think that Members would want to have it any other way. I do not think that they would want politicians to use a particular issue as an excuse to interfere too closely with the operational or editorial independence of the BBC. There is therefore, quite rightly, no provision for the Government to become involved in the BBC’s day-to-day operational and editorial decisions. For the same reason, the Government are equally committed to the independence of other broadcasters, and will not seek to intervene directly in their on-screen or staff gender balance.

The BBC agreement does, however, place a duty on the BBC executive board to make arrangements for promoting the equality of opportunity between men and women. The BBC executive board is accountable to the BBC Trust, and it is the duty of the trust to ensure that the duty on equality of opportunity is met. The BBC, Channel 4 and S4C are all subject to the Equality Act 2010, which seeks to eliminate discrimination and harassment and to advance equality of opportunity. Under the terms of the Act, all those broadcasters must publish equality objectives every four years, and publish information to demonstrate compliance with the general equality duty.

[Tessa Munt]

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but I find myself amazed that, while six of the 39 DJs at Radio 1 are women—all those DJs form the opinions of young women and young men across the country—that station had a greater number of female DJs in 1987. Setting four-year objectives does not seem to be having any impact whatever, if nothing has improved in all the intervening years.

[Mr Vaizey]

The hon. Lady makes her point forcefully, and I shall come to the points that she and my hon. Friend have raised.

I have mentioned the editorial independence of the BBC, and it is important to point out that all broadcasters’ content and output services are exempt from the provisions of the Equality Act, to ensure that politicians do not interfere in the editorial independence of those broadcasters.

Ofcom, the independent regulator, also has a duty in regard to the promotion of equal opportunities, and we are in the process of reforming that. I must emphasise that that does not mean that we will take those obligations any less seriously. However, with the Equality Act 2010, we believe that equality duties will be undertaken more efficiently with legislation in one place. We will be consulting shortly on our proposals, and I hope that the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend will participate in the consultation.

I think that to talk about redressing the balance is to put it too strongly, but I want to use this opportunity to point out areas in which broadcasters have made progress. My hon. Friend and the hon. Lady have both, quite rightly, highlighted the imbalance that exists in broadcasting, but it is worth pointing out that 50% of BBC Trust members are women. The proportion of females on the BBC executive board is only 42%, but that is still a far higher proportion than is found on the majority of corporate boards. Within the whole staff of the BBC, women make up 49% of the total, and more women are joining the organisation than men at the moment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tessa Munt and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Monday 29th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. We will be publishing a broadband strategy document at the beginning of the month which will address this specific issue. There are technical difficulties with achieving that, but if they can be overcome, it should certainly be done.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

11. What support his Department provides for the tourism industry in Wells.