Asked by The Lord Bishop of St Albans To ask Her Majesty’s
Government what proportion of the Digital Infrastructure Investment
Fund is expected to be available to support the provision of
superfast broadband in hard to reach rural areas. The Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media
and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con) ...Request free trial
Asked by
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The Lord
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proportion of the
Digital Infrastructure Investment Fund is expected to be
available to support the provision of superfast broadband
in hard to reach rural areas.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde)
(Con)
My Lords, the digital infrastructure investment fund aims
to support industry investment in full fibre networks,
which are the next generation of digital infrastructure.
The Government are committing £400 million, which will be
at least matched by private sector investments on the same
terms. It will be up to the selected managers of the fund
themselves to make investments.
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The Lord
I thank the Minister for his reply. Fibre alone may not be
sufficient to reach the final 5%; that is, those who will
not have access to superfast broadband by the end of this
year. In the light of that, what is being done to encourage
the use of alternate or mixed technologies? In particular,
when is BDUK expected to publish its report into superfast
broadband market test pilots, which we were promised was to
be published at the end of last year?
-
My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is absolutely right.
We are now not prescriptive about any particular technology
to reach the final 5%, as 95% will be covered for superfast
broadband by the end of this year. Therefore, any
procurement supported by BDUK is done through open tenders
on a technology-neutral basis. Projects supported since
2016 have included fibre to the cabinet, fibre to the
premises and fixed wireless access. As regards his question
about superfast broadband market test pilots, the report is
scheduled to be released shortly.
-
(Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend give the House an assurance
that 95% of the digital infrastructure investment fund will
be spent in the 5% hardest-to-reach areas? Does he agree
that it is unacceptable that doctors’ surgeries, schools,
rural businesses and farms are deprived of speed and good
access to infrastructure in the 21st century?
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The digital infrastructure investment fund is purely for
fibre projects. There may be hard-to-reach areas where
fibre is not the answer—where, for example, it may be
satellite or fixed wireless. Therefore, I cannot give my
noble friend the assurance she seeks. The Government are
working hard to reach those areas but the digital
infrastructure investment fund is purely for fibre, which,
of course, is very important for ongoing technology such as
5G.
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(Lab)
Given that the Government have now made the provision of
fast broadband a universal service obligation, does the
Minister recognise the need to create another fund which
will focus on technologies other than fibre to reach the
most difficult parts?
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Actually, fibre is crucial because it underlines every
other technology as, sooner or later, when you are on
wireless, you get to a router, and the data come via
fibre-optic cable. 5G, which will reach a lot more places
and has more bandwidth, relies on fibre for all the extra
masts that will be required.
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(LD)
My Lords, the Minister talked very broadly on the fibre
front, but in rural and indeed less rural places like
Leominster, people currently endure upload speeds of less
than 1 megabit per second. Can he tell us when these people
will be invited to join the digital economy?
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At the moment, anyone with a connection of less than two
megabits per second is entitled under the better broadband
scheme to have subsidised access to it. If they are above
that but below superfast level, the universal service
obligation will be in place by 2020, which will give them
10 megabits per second, and that will allow them to do
normal things such as emails and streaming TV.
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(Lab)
My Lords, the Minister knows rural Cheshire well. Will he
ensure that superfast broadband will aid and abet small
businesses to establish themselves in the countryside so
that they can strengthen the countryside for the benefit of
all those who live there?
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The noble Lord is correct; I know that area well. I point out
that there has been a tremendous improvement in rural
connectivity. In 2010, only 15% of rural premises were
getting 30 megabits per second; by April 2016 that had risen
to 72%, and since that, many more have received the coverage.
But I accept that it is important for businesses. When we
talk about getting to these targets of 95% and more, we mean
premises—which includes business premises as well, not just
households.
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(Con)
My Lords, the right reverend Prelate’s Question links very
nicely with the Question from the noble Lord, , about care and
consideration for older people in rural areas. We are failing
them, and in doing so we are losing a big opportunity to
lessen mental health problems, to keep elderly people in
contact with their children overseas, to make them see local
television and what is going on—in fact, to do away with the
isolation that is so prevalent in rural areas for elderly
people. What is the date when every part of England, Scotland
and Wales will have some broadband as a right?
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By 2020.
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