Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what recent estimate his Department has made of the number of households in (a) Mid Cheshire constituency, (b) Cheshire and (c) England that do not have (i) broadband and (ii) mobile internet access.

According to the independent website ThinkBroadband.com, 0.3% of premises in the Mid Cheshire constituency, 0.7% in Cheshire and 0.6% in England overall do not have access to broadband speeds in excess of the legal Universal Service Obligation (USO) of 10Mbps.

Ofcom publishes mobile coverage data for premises through its Connected Nations Reports and does not distinguish between households and other premises.

Ofcom’s most recent coverage reporting reports that 127,447 (0.5%) premises across England do not have indoor 4G mobile coverage from any mobile network operator (MNO). This falls to 10,382 (0.04%) premises for 4G outdoor coverage.

Ofcom data does not enable us to make an assessment of the number of premises in Cheshire that do not have coverage from any MNO.