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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he plans to take to reserve broadband capacity for essential (a) workers and (b) services in the event that networks are overloaded as a result of increased home-working.

DCMS is liaising closely with the main broadband providers to ensure network capacity is able to cope with the potential peak of home workers as a consequence of Covid-19. The telecoms sector has undertaken a significant amount of work over recent years to prepare for a pandemic, DCMS is reassured that those plans are extensive and that there is sufficient network capacity. However, we will remain in regular touch with companies and will continue to keep the situation under review.