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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to ensure a competitive broadband market in outer London.

The UK broadband market is generally competitive at a retail level, with a wide variety of Internet Service Providers, like Sky and TalkTalk, utilising BT Openreach’s broadband network to provide services across the UK, including in outer London. Much of the UK, including many areas of outer London, will also have access to other broadband networks, including Virgin Media’s network.

The UK has good superfast broadband coverage, with over 96% of premises having access to superfast speeds. As such, the government’s current focus is on delivering faster nationwide gigabit-capable broadband networks as soon as possible. Much progress towards this ambition has already been made, with around 1 in 3 UK premises now able to access gigabit-capable broadband according to the latest figures from Ofcom and ThinkBroadband.

The government believes that the way to deliver gigabit-capable broadband at pace is to encourage greater network competition and commercial investment, and to do so through the following steps:

• Making the cost of deploying gigabit capable networks as low as possible by addressing barriers to deployment, which increase costs and cause delays.

• Supporting market entry and expansion by alternative network operators through easy access to BT Openreach’s ducts and poles, complemented by access to other utility infrastructure.

• Stable and long-term regulation that encourages competitive network investment.

• Supporting the timely switchover to new gigabit capable broadband networks.

As the telecoms regulator, Ofcom has a key role in promoting competition. In addition, the government’s first ever Statement of Strategic Priorities (SSP) for telecoms, which was designated in October 2019, reiterated the importance of network competition and commercial investment to the rapid rollout of gigabit-capable broadband. Ofcom has to have regard to the SSP when exercising its regulatory functions and it is currently consulting on its regulations for the broadband market from April 2021 to March 2026. Its stated aim for this review is to promote competition and investment in new full fibre networks.

Some UK premises, mainly those in rural and/or remote areas, are unlikely to benefit from network competition and may not get gigabit-capable broadband in a reasonable timeframe without public sector investment. This is why we are investing £5 billion in these areas through our UK Gigabit programme.