Universal Service Obligation for Broadband — House of Commons, 2020-10-08
Topic: Technology
Anthony Edward Timpson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting this debate and to the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), for extending his Front-Bench stint to respond to it As someone from the last generation to be brought up in the analogue age, when pay phones, posted letters and patter by the water cooler were our default ways to communicate, Channel 4 was a novelty, and bookcases were full of books that we actually read, mobile phones and the onset of the internet age have been nothing short of a revelation to me. To the list of essential public utilities—water, gas, electricity and so on—can now be added broadband. It has rapidly become a critical part of our national infrastructure, reshaping the way we do business, access information and interact socially with the world around us Yet the speed, reliability and affordability of broadband across the UK are still playing catch-up with the new-found demand, leaving some communities, often rural, falling on the wrong side of what is termed the digital divide. That divide has been exposed and exacerbated further by the pressure put on all our broadband connections at home since the covid-19 outbreak in March. As the Minister said in the previous debate, up to 60% of the UK’s adult population were working from home during lockdown, as well as the millions of students who shifted to learning online It is therefore a real concern that despite the extensive efforts of those working in the telecoms industry and elsewhere, a recent survey revealed that a third of UK households are still struggling with inadequate broadband speeds, and that as banking and Government services increasingly move online, some communities have found themselves cut off from essential facilities In rural areas, including much of my Eddisbury constituency, continued poor connectivity represents a huge missed opportunity for economic development, let alone for help on other important and growing issues such as isolation and access to education. In 2018, 11% of rural premises, where more than 1 million small businesses are based, could not get a 10 megabits per second fixed-line connection, which is the speed required to meet a typical household’s digital needs—this is often named the "Netflix test"—and 24% could not get a 30 megabits per second, or superfast broadband, connection Let me put that into a local context. As of May 2020, Eddisbury had 2,162, or just under 5%, of all premises unable to receive "decent broadband"—this was two and a half times the national average. Drilling down further reveals figures of 9% for those living in Churton, Farndon and Malpas, 11.1% for those living in Dodleston, Tattenhall and Duddon, and 12.3% for those living in Audlem, Bunbury and Wrenbury. Depending on the subject matter, being 59th on a list of 650 constituencies can be a cause for celebration, but when the list is of which has highest proportion of residents unable to get good broadband it is not one to shout about. That is why I was pleased to stand on a manifesto that committed a Conservative Government to delivering nationwide gigabit-capable broadband by 2025, which was backed up by the 2020 Budget statement, which confirmed a total of £5 billion to roll out full fibre across the country. Progress is being made. On 10 September, the telecoms regulator, Ofcom, revealed that more than 4.2 million homes—about 14%--across the UK were now able to access faster, more reliable full fibre services, which is an increase of 670,000 since January. But it remains a real challenge to accelerate the extension of fibre to those hard-to-reach locations where there is an inherent lack of digital infrastructure.