Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what proportion of installation offers made for gigabit fibre broadband connections to new builds involved (a) a cost to the developers and (b) a cost of more than £1,800 per connection in the last 12 months.

My department does not currently hold this information for the last 12 months as it is part of commercial arrangements between telecoms operators and housing developers.

The Government is bringing forward a policy that will deliver gigabit broadband to the vast majority of new homes at minimal costs to developers. We will do this by bringing forward amendments to the Building Regulations 2010 to require housing developers to provide gigabit broadband unless the costs to the developer exceeds £2,000.

To support developers, and to ensure as many new homes as possible receive gigabit broadband, the Secretary of State has received commitments from Openreach, Virgin and Gigaclear on the costs of connecting new homes, these include:

• Virgin will contribute at least £500 per premise and up to £1,000 for larger developments;

• Gigaclear will contribute up to £1,000 per premise; and

• Openreach will contribute up to £1,400 per premise.

We have worked with Openreach to extend their free offer of gigabit broadband for new builds and also reduce costs for smaller developments. Openreach reduced their costs of connecting developments consisting of 2 to 4 premises to £2,000, from £3,100, ensuring they all fall within the proposed cost cap.

Based on discussions with industry, we estimate that these commitments ensure that, taken with the amended Building Regulations, gigabit broadband will be deployed to 99% of new build premises.