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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of using emergency services masts to improve mobile phone coverage in rural parts of Scotland and the UK.

In delivering the Emergency Services Network (ESN), the mobile network operator EE is delivering around 500 new sites (up to 291 of which will be funded by the Government) and upgrading its entire existing network. Over 300 of these new sites are in Scotland and all new sites are open to incoming site share applications from other Mobile Network Operators. Additionally, in the more remote areas of Great Britain, the Government, as part of its Extended Area Service (EAS) Programme, will deliver approximately 300 further sites for ESN and, potentially, for commercial coverage. 123 of these EAS sites will be in Scotland.