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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to support the roll out of full fibre to the premises ultrafast broadband in Stockport.

At present, 93% of premises can access ultrafast broadband (>100Mbps) in the constituency of Stockport, which compares favourably with the UK average of 69.03% (Thinkbroadband).

As announced in our latest Project Gigabit delivery update, the Government is assessing further Regional Supplier procurements for areas such as Stockport, where very extensive commercial delivery continues. We will provide further information for Greater Manchester and Merseyside (Lot 36) in future quarterly updates.

We also continue to subsidise telecoms providers to deliver connections to the hardest-to-reach areas through the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme. A total of 48 vouchers have been used to support gigabit connections in the Stockport constituency so far, worth £123,083.

Additionally, there is an ongoing partnership between Virgin Media Business and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to deliver a project under the Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme. The project is partly funded by the UK Government and will underpin a wide range of digital transformation and smart city projects aimed at improving the lives of those who live in Greater Manchester.

In its first year alone, the Greater Manchester LFFN project, which is the largest within the programme, has delivered £11.8 million of economic benefit to the region through the programme’s commitment to local employment.

The ongoing delivery through this project will deliver full-fibre connectivity to 1,500 public sites across the city region. Stockport is at the forefront of this project, with 134 of the 138 public sector sites covered by the project within the town having received a full-fibre connection.