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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what timetable he has in place for spending the £190 million allocated to the roll-out of full-fibre broadband.

The £190m Local Full Fibre Networks Programme’s Challenge Fund will be allocated directly to local bodies. As a condition of the grant agreement, all funding allocated to local bodies will need to be spent by the end of March 2021. Each local body will operate as the delivery lead for their project, so the timetable for spending their funding prior to this deadline will vary for each project according to their delivery schedule.