Broadband: Rural Areas

(asked on 23rd June 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the £825 million owed by BT to his Department following rural broadband upgrades has been returned; and how much of that funding has been re-invested to complete rural upgrades.


Answered by
Matt Warman Portrait
Matt Warman
This question was answered on 29th June 2021

£825m is BT's current forecast of clawback repayments due over the terms of the respective contracts awarded under the Superfast programme, not a figure that is owed immediately.

Contractually, take-up clawback can be placed in an account held by the supplier for up to the full seven years of the contract's term. An early release of these clawbacks was agreed to be reinvested through the programme of up to £129m for the furtherance of the programme's objectives.

Returned funding beyond this will be apportioned to the public investors in each superfast contract across the country in line with contracted investment ratios and the public investors in turn will need to decide how they wish to utilise this funding.

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