Broadband Universal Service Obligation — House of Commons, 2016-12-15
Topic: Technology
Geoffrey Robert Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Centre-right): I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) for opening this debate so knowledgeably My constituency is one of the most rural in England. Earlier this year, on 11 May, I called on the then Prime Minister, the right hon. David Cameron, to honour his commitment that every home and business should have access to broadband by the end of this Parliament. I therefore warmly welcome the inclusion in the Chancellor’s autumn statement of a provision for the deployment of over £1 billion to boost broadband speeds with the help of a digital infrastructure fund which, I am ever hopeful, will provide the universal service obligation It is self-evident that today everybody needs a good broadband speed: it has become almost as important a utility as water and electricity. As the representative of such a large rural constituency, it would be useful to illustrate its importance to one particular group—farmers. The connection statistics for farmers compiled by the National Farmers Union make for poor reading. Over 30% of British farmers do not receive their internet via fibre-optic, and 58% experience a download speed of 2 megabits per second or less, well below the current national average of 22.8 megabits per second. Like any modern business, farmers require a fast broadband connection to do a plethora of tasks, including vehicle registration, basic farm payments, livestock movement records, and animal registration; and increasingly, like all businesses in this country, they will have to file their tax affairs online. By their very nature, single farm payment claims, including plans, require a large amount of data to be transferred. If the Government really want to support this country’s 212,000 farms, they must take that seriously I warmly welcome the Digital Economy Bill, which could provide a legislative framework to ensure that the UK can become the best-connected country in the world, but it needs to be bolder and introduce future and rural-proofed legislation. It is clear that the universal service obligation that will introduce speeds of 10 megabits per second by 2020 is obsolete and out of date even before it has been introduced. The minimum EU standard for 2020 should be 30 megabits per second. Indeed, world standards are now moving towards 100 megabits per second, so we need to be ambitious We also need to be more inventive. As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness, all developments of more than 20 houses should have to install superfast broadband. As the previous Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) has said, we should be more inventive, and major public infrastructure projects should install superfast broadband My right hon. Friend also said that there has been good progress in Gloucestershire, and I praise him for what he did for my constituency and county. I have consistently campaigned for better broadband provision in my constituency, either by supporting private business to receive installation contracts or by lobbying the Government to increase public investment. Gloucestershire County Council, in conjunction with Fastershire, has seen almost 40,000 homes in my constituency receive superfast broadband over the two phases since it was introduced in 2014. That has been funded by a combination of funds from the county council and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, with a total investment of almost £28 million. I am glad to note that a further, third phase is soon to begin and will fill in any gaps and, I hope, leave most of my constituents with a reliable and appropriate internet connection In 2010, the coalition Government announced that Britain would have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2012, but that was postponed until 2015 and replaced by the less ambitious aim of having "the fastest broadband of any major European country" I praise the Government for making progress. I have cited the Akamai tables, which show the UK’s position in relation to Peru, and those same international tables show that Britain is the 12th country in the league. Given that we are the fifth largest economy, we cannot be complacent about our broadband provision As with the introduction of any utility, cost-benefit analysis must be undertaken and considered. According to the Government’s own 2013 "UK Broadband Impact Study", availability of faster broadband will add about £17 billion to the UK’s economy by 2024. The bulk of that money would come from improvements in productivity. In his autumn statement, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor was very keen to stress that we need to improve that. That would also safeguard employment in areas such as Wrexham, which would otherwise be left at an unfair disadvantage From an environmental perspective, a universal service obligation will offer additional benefits. Annually, 1.4 billion miles in commuting by car, 3.2 billion miles in business travel through increased use of online collaboration, and 1 billion kWh of electricity through broadband-using firms shifting their server capacity on to more efficient cloud platforms will be saved by the universal service obligation. All of that equates to a saving of 1.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year As I said, I strongly support the digital infrastructure fund announced in this year’s autumn statement. However, that investment will be severely diminished if there is no blanket improvement of mobile phone signals across the whole country. Although the introduction of 5G in major conurbations is warmly welcome, there are still great swathes of Britain, particularly rural areas, including in my constituency, that do not even experience an adequate 3G signal. Something must be done to improve the foundation of this country’s digital capacity The absence of phone signals—so-called not spots—should be a thing of the past in this country in the 21st century. In the Cotswolds, villages such as Great Rissington, Chedworth and Quenington are notorious for having a poor mobile phone signal. Indeed, there is a certain spot four miles from Cirencester on the A433—the Fosse way that goes through my constituency and a very busy road—where I know that my mobile phone is going to cut out. Surely in this country we should be able to do something about that. The mobile infrastructure policy is crucial in tackling the unacceptable problem whereby 20% of the UK is affected by not spots. One thing follows the other. If we have good broadband infrastructure, we can solve the mobile infrastructure problem Vodafone, EE and O2 have all successfully worked across the country to erect and share masts, including seven in my constituency. The world is moving on. I recently met a major Chinese telecoms firm, ZTE, which plans to gain £2 billion of the £20 billion UK telecoms market by 2025 from a standing start, using mainly fibre and wireless technology. For BT, that does not bode well. It is over-reliant on outdated copper wires when the world is moving towards fibre and wireless technology. It must adapt, otherwise it will simply go out of business The Government and regulators need to be mindful of the danger that when broadband and good mobile phone coverage are provided by companies with bespoke solutions, some of the smaller companies increase the cost to customers by more than the cost of inflation. That is a new and growing scourge that my right hon. Friend the Minister will need to look at with regulators I conclude by encouraging all parties involved—nationally and locally, private and public—to proceed as rapidly as possible in improving broadband and mobile coverage. To that end, the universal service obligation is entirely correct to create a legal requirement for such a crucial service. We must be ambitious when it comes to internet coverage and speed if we wish to tap into our economic potential to export more goods and services, and if we do not wish to allow our rival countries to overtake us As this will be my last contribution in the House before Christmas, Mr Deputy Speaker, may I wish you, all the staff in the House—especially my own staff—and right hon. and hon. Members and their families a very peaceful Christmas?