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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment his Department has made of the extent of the rollout of super-fast broadband in the Northampton South constituency.

Based on DCMS modelled estimates and current delivery plans, it is estimated that 99.7% of premises in the Northampton South constituency will have access to superfast broadband by December 2017. Additional funding sources, including Northamptonshire’s share of the £129 million of early gainshare funding that BT will return in response to the high levels of take-up being achieved, will allow coverage to be extended further in Northampton South and the rest of the area covered by the Northamptonshire broadband project.

In addition, the Government's intention to implement a new broadband Universal Service Obligation will give people the legal right to request a broadband connection, no matter where they live, by the end of this Parliament. Our ambition is that this should be set at 10 Mbps.

Current estimates suggest that almost 90% of premises in the Northampton South constituency are subject to commercial rollout, and a further 2,739 premises now have coverage as a result of this Government's superfast broadband programme.