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 meet the Universal Service Obligation and provide broadband to the final five per cent of properties in Hampshire.

The roll out of publicly funded superfast broadband in Hampshire is ongoing. Currently over 92% of premises have access to superfast broadband. Current contracts will ensure that superfast broadband services will be available to more than 97% of premises by 2019. For premises not covered by superfast broadband, the Government will ensure universal broadband access of at least 10Mbps by 2020, so that no home or business is left behind. We are currently considering two options for delivering this: a regulatory USO and a voluntary offer from BT and Openreach. A consultation on the design of the regulatory USO was published on 30 July and closes on 9 October. A decision on which route offers the best deal for consumers will be taken once we have considered the responses to the regulatory USO consultation.