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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve (1) mobile phone coverage, (2) broadband access, and (3) internet speeds, in rural areas

As set out in our 2017 5G Strategy our ambition is for the UK to have good quality mobile connectivity where people live, work and travel. This is why we reformed mobile planning laws in England in 2016, reformed the Electronic Communications Code in December 2017 and signed an Accord with the Church of England in February 2018 to make it easier and cheaper to install digital infrastructure across the UK including rural areas.

We also welcome Ofcom’s consultation, launched on 9 March, which outlines potential new licence obligations for rural coverage as part of the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction. This will further help drive coverage improvements for consumers

£1.7 billion of public money is being invested to support vital improvements in superfast broadband coverage across the UK. BDUK will continue supporting delivery of superfast broadband beyond the 95% level, and at least a further 2% is likely to be achieved. Of which, 340,000 premises (over 1% of premises) are contracted to be delivered by March 2019

The Better Broadband Scheme is available to those who are unable to obtain a connection speed above 2Mbps. The Scheme can support access to satellite broadband, 4G or wireless connections in some locations, and can also support community fibre broadband projects through the BT Community Fibre Partnerships scheme

As confirmed in our announcement in December 2017 we are pushing ahead with our plans for a Universal Service Obligation (USO) so that, by 2020, everyone across the UK will have a clear, enforceable right to request 10 Megabit per second broadband

Defra has also allocated £30 million of grant funding from the Rural Development Programme for England, targeted at helping to connect businesses with broadband in hard to reach rural areas

Full fibre broadband connections offer the fastest and most reliable speeds available, and the government is strongly committed to a vision of full fibre Britain. In the Spring 2017 Budget £200m of funding was allocated to the Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme. This funding was used to launch a £190m Challenge Fund designed to stimulate commercial investment in full fibre networks in both rural and urban locations across the whole of the UK.

We also recently announced our £67m Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme. The voucher scheme is designed to further the strategic objective of the Local Full Fibre Networks programme to stimulate commercial investment in full fibre coverage across the UK. Gigabit broadband vouchers can be used by small businesses and local communities to subside the installation cost of ultrafast connections over gigabit-capable infrastructure.