Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Trudy Harrison Excerpts
Wednesday 21st February 2024

(9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Rachel Maclean Portrait Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
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4. What steps her Department is taking to improve rural connectivity.

Trudy Harrison Portrait Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)
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6. What steps her Department is taking to improve rural connectivity.

James Davies Portrait Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
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8. What steps her Department is taking to improve rural connectivity.

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Julia Lopez Portrait Julia Lopez
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I thank my hon. Friend for raising this point, and I agree that we want to build underground where possible. It is important that she is advocating on behalf of her constituents, because we have had issues relating to poles. We encourage sharing, but that is not always happening. It seems to be an issue in particular pockets of the country, and we are talking to Ofcom about this to see what more we can do.

Trudy Harrison Portrait Trudy Harrison
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It is brilliant to hear about all of this progress. What assessment has the Minister made of the value for money cap in connecting the hardest-to-reach households and businesses, of which I have many in my very rural, incredibly beautiful but sparsely populated constituency?

Julia Lopez Portrait Julia Lopez
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My hon. Friend’s constituency has very low gigabit connectivity, partly because its geography makes connections very expensive. That is why we launched one of our very first contracts in Cumbria. Some 15,000 premises are going to be connected across Copeland, and we are trying to stretch the contract as far as it will go. For premises that will not be reached, we will look at other technologies so that we can get to them as quickly as possible.