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 is taking to facilitate access to superfast broadband for people on exchange only lines.

The Government and local bodies together are investing £1.7 billion of public money to support vital improvements in broadband services across the UK. Superfast broadband coverage reached 95% of premises in December 2017 – up from 45% in 2010. Many of the premises reached had exchange only lines.

For any premises not covered by superfast broadband, as confirmed in our announcement in December 2017, we are pushing ahead with our plans for a Universal Service Obligation (USO) so that by 2020 everyone across the UK will have a clear, enforceable right to request 10 Megabit per second broadband.

Within London the Government expects superfast broadband coverage to be provided by the private sector and is encouraging providers to tackle remaining issues including exchange only lines.