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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what his Department's policy is on expanding broadband provision in rural areas.

The Government’s policy is to ensure world-class broadband connectivity across the UK, including in rural areas.

To date, we have invested £1.7 billion of public money to deliver 95% superfast broadband coverage of the UK by the end of 2017, and are continuing to support delivery with at least a further 2% coverage likely to be achieved. In Northern Ireland, this will have provided superfast coverage to 41,000 premises.

In addition to this, the UK Government allocated a further £150 million for ultrafast broadband in Northern Ireland as part of the June 2017 funding agreement.

The Local Full Fibre Networks programme includes a £190 million Challenge Fund designed to stimulate commercial investment in full fibre networks in both rural and urban locations across the UK, including Northern Ireland.

Defra has also allocated £30 million of grant funding from the Rural Development Programme for England, targeted at helping to connect businesses with broadband in hard to reach rural areas.

To ensure no-one is left behind, the Better Broadband Scheme ensures all UK premises have access to an affordable broadband service delivering at least 2Mbps. From 2020 we are also introducing a broadband Universal Service Obligation so everyone across the UK will have a clear, enforceable right to request high-speed broadband.

Beyond these actions, the Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review will assess the policy conditions that will best encourage the long-term investment needed to deliver the next generation of digital infrastructure in different areas of the UK, including hard-to-reach rural areas.