Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether he plans to divert any of the £5bn in funding for Project Gigabit to urban areas.

Project Gigabit is designed to deliver gigabit-capable broadband to premises that will not be built to by the market without subsidy.

It is not possible to specify the proportion of Project Gigabit funding that will be allocated to rural and urban areas, as this depends on suppliers’ commercial rollout, which is subject to change. Funding will continue to be provided where it is needed. However, between April 2022 and March 2023, 90% of premises benefiting from government broadband schemes were in rural areas.