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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that funding for superfast broadband solutions have public support.

Publicly-funded superfast broadband projects under the Superfast Broadband Programme are subject to a competitive procurement process which is managed by the lead local authority. The successful supplier is selected by the local authority by determining which one has provided the most economically advantageous tender, using evaluation criteria which include cost and service quality parameters. The quality parameters can include consideration of the range of retail internet service providers who will offer retail services over the network. Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) in DCMS provides assurance that the selected supplier’s solution meets EU state aid requirements and that there is no over-compensation of the supplier.