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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to improve broadband speeds in rural areas.

Superfast Broadband is now available to nearly 94% of premises in the UK and is on track to reach 95% by the end of 2017 and we recently announced £645M funding to take this further. By 2020, we will ensure universal broadband access to at least 10Mbps, so that no home or business is left behind.

The Local Full Fibre Networks programme will be available across the UK, including in rural areas. Funding from the programme is likely to deliver fibre installations in areas where the current cost of delivering fibre is not commercially viable.