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 help increase internet connectivity in the West Midlands.

It is the government's view that the best way to achieve nationwide gigabit coverage is to create a competition-friendly environment in areas where deployment is commercially viable, while focussing government funds on the 20% of the country where commercial deployment is unlikely. As a result of this approach, over 65% of premises in the UK can access gigabit-capable networks, up from just one in ten in November 2019. By 2025 the government is targeting a minimum of 85% gigabit-capable coverage.

Based on data from www.thinkbroadband.com, almost 74% of premises in the West Midlands currently have access to gigabit broadband, while 98% have superfast broadband availability. Delivery of superfast and gigabit broadband continues in a number of areas within the West Midlands including Herefordshire, Shropshire and Warwickshire through projects under the Superfast Broadband Programme. Warwickshire, Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent have also benefitted from the government’s Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme, which provides public funding to support the installation of full-fibre broadband infrastructure.

The Government is now investing £5 billion through Project Gigabit to support gigabit broadband coverage in areas not covered by commercial roll-out. The latest Project Gigabit Quarterly Publication, published in October 2021, provides an update on the delivery plan and target timeline for the regional supplier procurements for the West Midlands counties of Warwickshire (Lot 11), Staffordshire (Lot 19), Shropshire (Lot 25), Worcestershire (Lot 24) and Herefordshire (Lot 15). Further Regional Supplier procurements for areas including Birmingham and the Black Country (Lot 35), where very extensive commercial delivery continues, are also being considered, and further information will be provided in future quarterly updates.

As part of Project Gigabit, the government is also investing up to £210m in the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) to support rural communities with the cost of installing new gigabit-capable connections. The GBVS provides a micro-grant of up to £1,500 for residents and up to £3,500 for businesses towards the cost of installing gigabit-capable broadband. Home and business owners can check the eligibility of their addresses at the GBVS website.