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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact on vulnerable people in remote rural areas of the loss of telephone contact during power cuts; and what plans they have to review their policy of withdrawing telephone land lines from some rural properties given the experience during recent storms.

The telecoms industry is retiring the Public Switched Telephone Network as the old technology reaches the end of its serviceable life, with landlines being replaced by Voice over Internet Protocol services. The decision to upgrade the telephone network has been taken by the telecoms industry and not the Government. Ofcom, the independent telecoms regulator, has issued guidance on how telecoms companies can fulfil their regulatory obligation to ensure that their VoIP customers have access to the emergency services during a power outage. This guidance was prepared following consultation with Ofgem and the industry, looking at data on average power outages among other factors.

This guidance states that providers should have at least one solution available which enables access to emergency organisations for a minimum of one hour in the event of a power outage in the premises, and that the solution should be suitable for customers’ needs and should be offered free of charge to those who are at risk because they are dependent on their landline. This might include relying on the mobile network, which has a high degree of power resilience, or using a battery back-up unit to provide power. Ofcom’s full guidance is available on its website here.

As part of our standard procedure for large incidents, DCMS is working with Ofcom and the telecoms sector to complete a Post-Incident Review on the response to Storm Arwen. Similarly, BEIS as the Lead Government Department for energy is undertaking its own review; both these reports will identify lessons and develop actions to improve responses for future events.