Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) is clearly in a very jolly mood, and I hope that it is contagious.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

We are all very jolly in Cumbria that 93% of our homes will be connected to superfast broadband by this time next year. The fact that 7% will not be and will have a minimum of 2 megabits per second download speed should trouble us, particularly when we realise that that means an upload speed of only 0.2 megabits per second, which causes serious problems for businesses in areas that are not connected. What can my right hon. Friend do to guarantee that the 7% of businesses and residences that do not have superfast broadband are helped?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. That is why we have put in place a £10 million fund to look at how we can get to hard-to-reach places with new technology and new ways of doing things. He is right that superfast broadband is one of the most important infrastructure projects that this Government are putting in place. We are doing the hard work that the Labour party did not do when they were in government. The results speak for themselves: coverage in the UK is higher than in Germany, France, Italy and Spain and, what is more, our broadband lines are cheaper as well.