Rural Broadband

Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. That is part of the trouble and is hard to understand. When someone knows that people right next to them have a good connection but they themselves have not it seems a huge anomaly. BT has so much fibre-optic cable that where it is rolling out the contract it tries to deliver broadband with that cable, but sometimes it simply will not work. I do not think that BT is necessarily deploying the other technologies that we need as fast as it should be.

[Tom Elliott (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) (UUP)]

It is interesting to hear the hon. Gentleman say that the areas that are of most concern to him are the 5% who are not going to get broadband if the 95% target is hit. What about my constituency? Fermanagh and South Tyrone has coverage for only 55% of the population; are the other 45% not as much disadvantaged as the 5% in the areas with 95% coverage, or even more disadvantaged?

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Gentleman stresses the point that people in a large area of his constituency are not getting the connection that they should be getting. That is the problem. We have done well in the areas we can get to reasonably easily, but given the amount of public money going in to deliver to the areas that are harder to get to, I feel coverage is not getting there fast enough and there is not enough concentration on that problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Elliott (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) (UUP)]

It is quite an interesting debate here today—and we have almost had the debate already. I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) has secured this debate. The last time I spoke in this Chamber, he intervened. The debate was on fracking, and I recall that he was blaming Europe, or he was taking the blame for most decisions that had been taken in Europe. I am surprised that he has not also taken the blame for the decision on rural broadband.

As I said, I welcome the debate and I want to touch on a few aspects of the issue. One critical aspect is how targets will be met. It is okay to reach 95% in some areas. As with rural farm payments, it is often possible to reach the first 90% or 85% quite easily; it is getting to the last ones that is very difficult. However, in my constituency and others in Northern Ireland, we are not near that: 55% is the figure for Fermanagh and South Tyrone and the situation is similar in other areas. For West Tyrone, the figure is also 55%. Only four constituencies in Northern Ireland—the urban ones in Belfast—are meeting the 95% target. I am sure that other people in rural areas are in a similar position.

We need a much more in-depth look at who can get broadband when there is a fibre-optic cabinet in the area. I have found two examples recently. About a year ago, we found that the Department of Education was bringing fibre optic to a local village school, but no one else in the village or in the area—no business and no resident—could access that fibre-optic connection. We have now found that BT is bringing fibre optic to the village and putting it into a cabinet, but many people in the area still cannot obtain it from BT. I cannot understand the technology of that.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

This issue is regularly raised in Wales. We get notification that fibre optic is enabled in our area, but if we ring to sign up, it is not. How much can we rely on BT’s statistics? I ask my hon. Friend the Minister this question through my hon. Friend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott). How robust are the statistics that tell us that these targets are being met if we are being told one thing but the physical reality on the ground is another?

[Tom Elliott]

Absolutely. I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention; what he says is right. I do not have an answer as to how reliable the figures are, but obviously the Minister may be able to give us more information on that. Clearly, if fibre optic is in the village, whether it is going to the school or to a cabinet through BT, the real question is why businesses and residents cannot access it. I just do not know. That has not been addressed.

Another issue in the EFRA Committee report that I noticed was not addressed is how farmers in particular, and people in rural areas in general, cannot now access business opportunities. Some of this is just about the simple registration of births of animals. Doing that online is actually very efficient. Someone may make a mistake on a form, and farmers quite often do—I am a farmer myself, so I hold my hand up—but it is very difficult to make one on the electronic form that is submitted, because it will be rejected. In fact, it is almost impossible to make a mistake on the application form that people put in. Many farmers are disadvantaged because they cannot do that online. In Northern Ireland, we can apply for the single farm payment process online, but many farmers in Northern Ireland cannot do that, simply because they do not have broadband availability. Even the dial-ups in Northern Ireland are quite slow—much slower, I am sure, than the broadband or dial-up connection used by the wife of the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton.

We want answers to those questions. I noted that the Minister had referred to two areas, saying that there was 98% and 93% availability of high-speed broadband. The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) referred to Dorset, saying that the last 5% is key. It is the last 45% in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. It is the last 45% in West Tyrone, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) will make the case about his constituency, where I am sure the figure is equally low, so I think—

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. That is five minutes.