5G Connectivity: Telford and West Midlands

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Gen Kitchen.)

It is good to see the Minister in his place. He is a man with great knowledge of, and passion for, this agenda, and I know he will take it forward in Telford, west midlands and further afield. I also want to place on record my gratitude to the Department for how helpful and proactive it has been with me since I raised this issue both in this House and outside of it. I am also grateful for the opportunity to raise in Parliament something I have been talking about for some time, but which my constituents have been putting up with for even longer: 5G connectivity in Telford and across our region—or the lack of it.

Debates on this subject often focus on connectivity in rural areas, and rightly so, but I want to start out by reminding anyone who is unaware that, despite our beautiful nature and green spaces, Telford is no village. It is a town with more than 185,000 people. Our borough is predicted to reach 200,000 people by 2032; that represents12.5% growth from 2018. We are just a half an hour drive from Wolverhampton and 40 minutes from our second city, Birmingham, but despite our size, population and proximity to major cities, we have very patchy 5G connections. In fact, constituents tells me that getting a 4G reception is often a challenge.

Telford is a cultural and economic hub, bustling with industry. I cannot tell people to come and employ people in our great town, or to visit our wonderful world heritage site, when connectivity in whole areas across our town are, frankly, in the dark ages. This problem feels all the more sharp because we are in the heart of a region—the west midlands—which, according to the West Midlands combined authority, has the best 5G in the country. The combined authority is doing excellent work, led by Mayor Richard Parker. He is harnessing technology to reduce congestion and pollution, and to improve the local economy and the services it offers. Telford is run by a forward-thinking council that would be very keen to innovate in similar ways, if we were only given the opportunity.

Constituents have been raising this issue in conversations with me for a very long time, but I wanted to get some numbers so I ran a survey of my constituents. The results were stark: almost 100% of respondents told me that they have no 5G connection whatsoever. For many, that was the experience in their homes, their workplaces and even in our town centre. One constituent, Bill, told me that his connection both at home and work has got worse in the last five years. Another, Joanne, said her signal with O2 has deteriorated even in the last few months, although O2 denies this. Two other constituents, Waz and Phil, both said they had changed providers multiple times but found them to be “all the same”. One former constituent, Peter, who now lives in Europe, told me that the contrast between us and our international partners is “shocking”. I could go on with the results of my survey, but if the Minister would like to hear directly from my constituents he is very welcome to visit them, or I can share the survey results with him.

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech and a really good point, which applies equally to urban and rural areas. Mobile network operators do not have minimum standards of coverage and quality of signal. At some places where there was good coverage before, that now no longer appears to be the case because the signal quality is so poor. Does he agree that we need to look at a way to ensure mobile network operators provide a good quality signal to everyone?

I agree with my Shropshire neighbour. This is a rural issue and an urban one. A mobile signal is very much like a utility; people expect it to work for both their personal life and their work-related life.

Telford and Wrekin council kindly shared with me a report containing research by the River Severn Partnership. Between 2024 and 2025, it found a “significant difference” between what Ofcom estimated 5G coverage to be and real-world experience. The survey found that 28% of Telford postcodes did not have a good phone signal, but Ofcom claims there is not a single postcode in Telford where the signal is poor. Again, that is in direct contrast to the lived experiences of our residents. This goes to the heart of the problem and it is exactly what our residents are saying: what Ofcom and the Government say just does not live up to the real-life experiences.

In an answer to a written question last January, the then Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant), told me that 99% of all premises in my constituency have 5G available. I am not in any way attributing blame to that Minister, because I know that the Government get their data from Ofcom, which in turn gets its data from the network providers, and those network providers told me in a meeting this week that their data is provided through computer generation and analytics. The real-life experiences of residents are not taken into consideration.

The Local Government Association—an organisation with which I am very familiar—authored a report with the all-party parliamentary group on digital communities. That report was very validating for my constituents. It said that residents who make complaints are not imagining things, and the association took the same issue with Ofcom’s data, confirming that

“while Ofcom’s regulatory oversight has supported progress in expanding digital infrastructure, significant concerns remain about the accuracy of coverage data. The current system relies heavily on operator-supplied modelling, which often fails to reflect the lived experiences of residents.”

My hon. Friend has made some excellent points. Tettenhall in my constituency is a significantly populated suburb of Wolverhampton, where residents face similar problems to those highlighted by my hon. Friend. Constituents say that they have little or no signal and they struggle to make contact with family and friends. The other day, a constituent told me that he had difficulty contacting the emergency services because there was no mobile phone connectivity.

My hon. Friend is right to say that very often the problem is considered to be in rural areas but that more densely populated areas, such as Tettenhall, have similar problems. Does my hon. Friend agree that in this day and age we need to ensure that there is connectivity everywhere?

I completely agree. My hon. Friend makes the excellent point that this issue is not just about economic growth and access to public services, though that is important; it is also about access to lifesaving services in an emergency.

In case I have come across too negative, at this point I would like to acknowledge the progress that is being or will be made. I recently had the chance to meet officials and Baroness Lloyd who is a Minister in the Department for Science, Innovation and Skills, who informed me about Ofcom’s reporting tool—a map that enables my constituents to show Ofcom where they are not getting 5G signal—but I gently point out to the Minister that the expectation cannot simply be on our residents to report problems, when network providers are making millions in profit.

I have written to Ofcom and providers, including O2, EE, 3 and BT. I found them all to be responsive, and I met some of them this week and will do so again. It is so important that we seek action. Although what they say sounds great in principle, I hope that providers will forgive me and my constituents for saying that we will believe it when we see it, because ultimately the test is whether, in 2026, people can connect to a 4G or 5G signal.

My hon. Friend is making a compelling speech. I should declare that in a previous role, I advised a mobile phone company on communications. There have been occasions in the past when mobile phone companies and other digital companies have made very grand promises about things like video calling, as happened when they rolled out 3G, and then 4G and then 5G, but unfortunately those promises have not always matched the expectations of the public, who watch the adverts and buy the devices. Does my hon. Friend agree that while companies are going to great lengths to improve services, we must implore them to match the reality of their service provision with the things that they are advertising and promising?

I want to emphasise that I am not asking the Government and the providers for charity; I am asking for an opportunity for us to contribute. Telford is a wonderful town, Shropshire is a wonderful county and the west midlands is a fantastic region, and those consumers are a market opportunity for this ever-growing network. If we want Telford to continue to grow as we have done for the past 60 years, we need to be in the 21st century, and when it comes to 5G, we simply are not. Businesses need to know that they can operate; people need to know that they can work from home and access online GP appointments; and, crucially for a town that is impacted by flooding, especially around the famous world heritage site at Ironbridge gorge, we must be sure that we can contact the emergency services in a crisis. That resilience and connectivity must be there. Telford has so much to offer the Government, the private sector and anyone who wants to live, visit or invest in our town. In return, we need modern 5G infrastructure.

I have both a national and a local ask of the Minister. Nationally, I echo the call of the digital communities all-party parliamentary group, which is chaired by the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), for an independent review of the UK’s digital connectivity framework and the integrity of the data in reporting. It is frustrating for me and my constituents to be hit with the “computer says no” answer when sharing our lived experience of something that is a real problem to so many people. The Ofcom reporting tool is welcome, but I ask the Minister to go further, so that we are not just starting with an inaccurate map and making individual residents responsible for correcting it.

First and foremost, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) for securing this Adjournment debate. Throughout his entire tenure as the local MP, he has been a relentless champion for the people of Telford on the question of 5G and mobile coverage. He has listened closely to those he represents in person and through surveys. He has represented their voices in the media and to my hon. Friend the Minister for the Digital Economy in the other place, and he has done that again in this debate with both an impressive speech and a deep understanding of Telford.

Mobile coverage is an extremely important topic, which is reflected in the amount of interest shown across from the House in any parliamentary activity on the subject. Access to high-quality, reliable and secure mobile connectivity is critical for people to participate effectively in the modern digital economy. It is essential for day-to-day life in many cases. Whether it is to run a business online, to access essential public services, to manage finances online, to contact GP surgeries or to stay in touch with loved ones, we all need reliable mobile connectivity.

The Government have an ambition for all populated areas to have access to higher-quality stand-alone 5G by 2030. That of course includes Telford and areas right across the west midlands. It is true that Ofcom currently reports that stand-alone 5G is available outside of only 1% of premises across my hon. Friend’s constituency. That is clearly unacceptable. I am also conscious that the picture has slightly updated in recent months, and I will take the opportunity to shine some light on that. The published coverage stats were last collected in July last year, and there has been some improvement in the picture since then. We expect that the figure will further increase significantly in the next report published by Ofcom as reporting catches up with network roll-out.

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I just highlight that I did not declare my interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on digital communities, which I should have done?

Fantastic; that is now on the record. I shall just remind the Minister that he is also more than welcome to come to my constituency of Sussex Weald to deal with any 5G connectivity questions.