That this House has considered the impact of the time taken to install gigabit capable broadband on rural communities.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. Broadband is now an essential part of daily life. Families, businesses and communities all rely on a good connection. The fact that most of us managed without it for most of our lives is irrelevant; times change, and we change with them. I recall family friends talking, when I was a child, about electricity coming to their village in the 1940s. We would not now think it tolerable for any village not to have a reliable supply of electricity, because the provision of electricity is a basic service—a utility that underpins almost everything in daily life. In many ways, that is what broadband is becoming.
I represent a beautiful Somerset constituency that is part rural and part urban. I can see the different issues that persist in different areas, and the gap in service between those who live in the town and those who live in the countryside. Last year, I conducted a survey of the rural areas in my constituency and asked residents to rate the quality of their broadband service. I asked them to give scores out of 10 across customer service, internet speed, reliability and value for money.
I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. Under a previous Government, the DUP had funding from the confidence and supply arrangement, and we were able to boost the broadband in Northern Ireland exceptionally. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, by their very nature, delays perpetuate the digital divide, causing rural areas to be perceived as lagging behind their urban counterparts in economic growth, productivity and access to essential services, and that in fact this could, and must, be easily remedied by investment and a good delivery strategy?
The hon. Member is making a really important speech, and I commend him for the survey he conducted. In Cumbria, many communities and homes that are within the scope of Project Gigabit are still going to be excluded from it because they are deemed too difficult to reach. The majority of those places will be upland farms, where the people are on less than minimum wage. Does the hon. Member agree that the people who produce our food and tend our beautiful landscapes have as much right to be connected to the internet as the rest of us?
I agree with the hon. Gentleman, who anticipates a section of my speech on farmers. I am going to make a little progress, if I may.
Those in the most remote rural areas of my constituency reported the worst service. For example, residents of Broomfield rated their service at 2.6 out of 10; in Lyng, it was 2.2 out of 10; and in Durleigh, it was an average of just 1.5 out of 10. When I am out on the doorstep, access to reliable broadband is one of the most noticeable gaps between the experience of those in towns and of those in small villages.
My hon. Friend is making an important speech that reflects what we see in my constituency, where more than 15,000 premises are still without acceptable broadband speeds. I wrote to the Minister responsible before Christmas, and when they finally responded to my letter, there was no answer for the nearly 10,000 premises from Willington to Delamere Park and beyond that are unlikely to be covered by a new framework contract. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must consider either reopening the voucher scheme or providing an answer on how those homes and businesses will get the broadband speeds they need for today’s digital world?
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important point. I agree with her and hope the Minister will respond.
We cannot expect businesses to survive, let alone grow, if they are cut off from the digital world that the rest of the country takes for granted. For farmers and small business owners, the issue is especially unfair. They are required to interact with Government agencies, with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and with banks almost entirely online, yet many are forced to do so with unreliable connections, painfully slow upload and download speeds, and constant disruptions.
On that point, farmers have been encouraged to diversify their businesses, and Stubbhayne farm in Southleigh has lost countless bookings because people who wanted to stay there found they could not use the internet in the farm’s bed-and-breakfast accommodation. That problem has now been resolved, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that such issues really affect businesses in rural areas?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point. He is right that time that should be spent running a business is often wasted waiting for files to load, forms to submit or video calls to reconnect.
My constituent Sue Felstead runs a restaurant at Greenway farm in Wembdon. She had ongoing problems with the farm’s internet service, which had a hugely negative impact on her business. She relied on broadband for the card machine, the music system and other devices, but had a download speed of only 2 megabits per second. That meant that customers who were waiting to pay by card could not pay their bill because the internet would crash, and that music would be cut off midway through a song. The issue got so bad that BT told Sue she would be better off using Starlink. That is an extraordinary thing for BT to tell her, and I hope the Minister will comment on that. In the end, it cost her £1,500 to have Starlink installed.
In rural areas, there is often a double whammy. As a vet, I know from driving around in the night trying to find calvings or horses at 2 in the morning that there is also no mobile signal in places with very poor broadband. It is a problem not just in very remote rural areas: in my constituency we have issues in Sutton Scotney, South Wonston and New Alresford—a thriving market town that is in the bottom 10% for connectivity. This is not acceptable for businesses. It is not just inconvenient; it is holding businesses back.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Problems with internet connectivity and mobile connectivity often affect the same areas. This debate is specifically about broadband, but I would be happy if the Minister chose to touch on mobile signals as well.
The lack of reliable broadband is not just inconvenient; it is actively damaging to business.
One of my constituents runs a company that develops semiconductor technology, but the listed building he is in was recently removed from an Openreach fibre-to-the-premises plan. Does the hon. Member agree that Openreach must be more transparent in decisions not to provide services, and that such delays to gigabit fibre provision risk making rural Somerset a less attractive place to set up cutting-edge businesses?
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. He and I have perhaps similar constituencies, in that we have one large dominant town and a hinterland of many small villages and hamlets. Those in the town often have a very good service, while those in the small villages do not.
A lack of reliable broadband limits productivity, increases stress and makes it harder for rural businesses to compete on an equal footing.
I thank the hon. Member for securing this really important debate. My broadband survey in Monmouthshire shows that communities such as Trellech, Llangwm and Mamhilad have really big issues with broadband. Will the hon. Member address the issues for people personally, not just for business? A man from my constituency got in touch with me whose wife was disabled. She sadly passed away in May, but he told me that because a lot of the management of her condition was supposed to be online, and online systems were used to get her health sorted out, that made life very difficult for him. I could give countless other examples. Will the Minister address the fact that we must prioritise rural broadband in Wales?
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point.
The lack of reliable broadband discourages innovation and investment, and pushes people towards cities and towns—not because they want to leave their beautiful, rural life, but because they feel they have no real choice.
The hon. Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) anticipated my next point: it is not only businesses that suffer. Families struggle to access online education, healthcare services and remote work opportunities. Young people are placed at a disadvantage simply because of where they live.
My semi-rural constituency is less than an hour from London, so people would think the broadband would be tip-top, but it is far from it. In some areas, speeds are less than 1 megabit per second. As we have discussed, this prevents businesses from holding online meetings and so on, but it also means that, for example, students cannot go home in the holidays to stay with their parents because they simply cannot complete their studies. Does the hon. Member agree that high-speed broadband is critical to this country’s infrastructure and that the Government have a duty not to leave rural communities behind?
I thank the hon. Lady for raising that point, and I agree with her. That is why I started my speech with a reference to electricity being rolled out to the last few villages in the 1940s. We would think that was extraordinary nowadays. The Government certainly have a duty to roll out broadband to the whole country.
The previous Government had a good record on rolling out gigabit broadband throughout the UK. In 2018, full-fibre coverage stood at 6% of UK households; today, the proportion is 78%, which is a remarkable transformation. But the Minister will be aware that we need that to go up to 100%, and I hope he will outline how this Government will complete the journey.
The hon. Gentleman is being so generous with his time. In North Shropshire we were really excited because we were included in Project Gigabit, which was going to roll out fibre broadband for 12,000 properties—mostly easier to reach ones, but it would have been a significant improvement none the less. Freedom Fibre, which had that contract, has handed it back, having connected only around 3,000 properties, and we now have to wait for Openreach to get around to it, despite the fact that, in the meantime, everybody has to pay BT for pretty poor broadband, come what may. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Project Gigabit roll-out has been a shambles in some areas, and that the Government need to prioritise those areas that were promised an improvement but have been let down yet again, to make sure that they get their connections sooner rather than later?