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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many (a) households and (b) businesses do not have a broadband speed of 2Mbit/s in each region and constituent part of the UK.

Nearly 90% of homes and businesses in the UK currently have access to superfast broadband - and we are on target to reach 95% by the end of 2017. The Ofcom Connected Nations Report, published in December 2015 (which can be found here: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/market-data/infrastructure/connected-nations-2015/) shows the percentage of premises that have access to broadband speeds above 10Mbit/s.

Since 2010, we have substantially reduced the proportion of all UK premises with speeds less than 2Mbit/s - from 11% to around 1% in December last year. All homes and businesses that cannot currently get 2Mbps can now take advantage of a subsidised satellite broadband service delivering speeds of 10Mbps or more - meeting our commitment to provide access to at least 2Mbit/s broadband speed to all premises.