Broadband Universal Service Obligation — House of Commons, 2016-12-15
Topic: Technology
Albert Owen (Labour, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman is leading with his chin. If he checks Hansard, he will see that he will have said the opposite on many occasions. He will have said it was not possible. He will have said that the Government were not going to deliver it. However, all of a sudden, it was not just their ambition but their flagship policy. I welcome that, but I want that flagship policy to come in as soon as possible I recently had a meeting—one of several meetings—with service providers, BT Openreach, and constituents and local business people who are finding it difficult to operate because of the poor broadband coverage. The chief executive officer of BT Openreach has agreed to visit my constituency to see the problems and the challenges. I have been out with engineers, and I do understand the topography and some of the other issues they have to deal with. However, I do not accept that in the 21st century, when we have put a man on the moon and I can talk to my daughter in Melbourne, Australia, we cannot get a decent signal. Rural, peripheral areas like the Faroe Islands can get 100% broadband coverage. If there is a political will, it is technically possible to do it I am at therefore at one with the new Minister in bringing in his Digital Economy Bill, but I do have a few questions for him. He has been talked up as the great successor to the previous Minister, and he has a real challenge on his hands to live up to his reputation, but I want him to go further and tell this House how the roll-out of universal broadband is actually going to work, because all we hear at the moment is words. Who is Ofcom going to ask to roll this out? Are we going to go to the market forces that have failed many areas of the United Kingdom thus far in relation to mobile? I have dozens of mobile operators phoning up and saying, "Do you want a connection?", and when I tell them where I live they are unable to do it, so the market is not a magic solution. What secondary legislation will follow the Digital Economy Bill to deliver this? I welcome the Bill, which lifts our status as a country in moving forward in the digital age, but how will it work in practice I want to make the new Minister an offer that I made to the previous one: for my constituency—on the periphery; rural, semi-rural and urban—to be a pilot scheme for the new universal service obligation. I am sure that, working with private companies and with the Welsh Government, we can deliver full coverage. At the moment, we have just 79.9% superfast broadband, 6.4% ultrafast broadband, and 14.5% below the speeds that we now call superfast broadband. There is a challenge there for the country as a whole, as well as in my constituency I support the universal service obligation and the Government’s intention to have it for 2020. I know the Minister is a decent person, and I ask him to give a gift to the people of Ynys Môn—the isle of Anglesey—today by saying, "Yes, we will look at having the isle of Anglesey as a pilot scheme for the future." Then I will work with him and his Government to get the USO on Anglesey and across the United Kingdom.