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1280849

registered interest
date	26/01/2021
answering body	Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept id	10
answering dept short name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept sort name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
hansard heading	Broadband
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to their report Planning for Gigabit Delivery in 2021, published on 22 December 2020, what percentage of (1) "red: large contract procurement areas", (2) "blue: small procurement areas", and (3) "grey: forecast build areas", will be covered by gigabit broadband by 2025.
tabling member printed	The Lord Bishop of St Albans
uin	HL12611
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 02/02/2021 answer text <p>The government’s target is for a minimum of 85% gigabit capable coverage by 2025, but is seeking to accelerate roll-out further to get as close to 100% as possible. It is not yet possible to break down the coverage as requested at this stage, since the procurement pipeline has not yet been established.</p><p>The Planning for Gigabit report included potential large and small procurement areas and the Government will be publishing revised maps and procurement pipeline in the Spring, once it has taken account of suppliers’ and local authorities’ feedback on the illustrative areas.</p><p>The government will also publish an overall programme delivery profile and report progress against its milestones .</p><p> </p> answering member printed Baroness Barran question first answered 02/02/2021 15:16:55 answering member 4703 label Biography information for Baroness Barran
tabling member	4308 label Biography information for The Lord Bishop of St Albans

1274338

registered interest
date	06/01/2021
answering body	Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept id	10
answering dept short name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept sort name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
hansard heading	Broadband
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of classifying broadband as an essential utility.
tabling member constituency	Jarrow
tabling member printed	Kate Osborne
uin	134199
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/01/2021 answer text <p>The Government believes that a fast, reliable broadband network is essential, which is why we are committed to ensuring nationwide gigabit-capable broadband as soon as possible. We are making good progress towards this target, with around 1 in 3 UK premises now able to access a gigabit-capable connection according to the latest figures from Ofcom and ThinkBroadband.</p><p>With regards to classifying broadband as an essential utility, operators already have strong rights to support rollout of new fibre. We are proposing to further strengthen these rights following through the Telecoms Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill, which aims to make it easier for providers to connect tenanted properties where there are unresponsive landlords. Alongside this, we are committed to consulting on further reforms to the Electronic Communications Code, the statutory framework underpinning the rights of telecoms operators to deploy digital infrastructure on public and private land.</p><p>The Government will continue to take action to support gigabit rollout in other ways. For example, in harder to reach areas, we are investing £5 billion through our UK Gigabit Programme.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Boston and Skegness answering member printed Matt Warman question first answered 15/01/2021 17:19:13 answering member 4361 label Biography information for Matt Warman
tabling member	4783 label Biography information for Kate Osborne

1271715

registered interest
date	16/12/2020
answering body	Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept id	10
answering dept short name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept sort name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
hansard heading	Broadband
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate he has made of the average amount paid annually by households in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England for broadband connectivity for each year since 2010.
tabling member constituency	Coventry North East
tabling member printed	Colleen Fletcher
uin	130750
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/01/2021 answer text <p>Ofcom’s <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/multi-sector-research/cmr/cmr-2020" target="_blank">2020 Communications Market Report</a> sets out UK average monthly spend on fixed voice and data services. These costs include VAT and are adjusted for inflation at 2019 prices.</p><table><tbody><tr><td><p>Year</p></td><td><p>Average fixed voice and data cost (£)</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2010</p></td><td><p>38.38</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2011</p></td><td><p>37.19</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2012</p></td><td><p>37.36</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2013</p></td><td><p>37.38</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2014</p></td><td><p>38.23</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2015</p></td><td><p>39.84</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2016</p></td><td><p>42.01</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2017</p></td><td><p>42.59</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2018</p></td><td><p>39.59</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>2019</p></td><td><p>37.25</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Ofcom data does not provide regional breakdowns.</p><p><strong> </strong></p> answering member constituency Boston and Skegness answering member printed Matt Warman question first answered 11/01/2021 14:45:20 answering member 4361 label Biography information for Matt Warman
tabling member	4378 label Biography information for Colleen Fletcher

1271912

registered interest
date	16/12/2020
answering body	Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept id	10
answering dept short name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept sort name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
hansard heading	Broadband
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to their announcement on 25 November that their target for the rollout of gigabit broadband to householders in the UK by 2025 has been revised to 85 per cent, when they estimate 100 per cent of households will have such broadband; and what costs will be saved before 2025 as a result of the new target.
tabling member printed	Lord Clement-Jones
uin	HL11527
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/12/2020 answer text <p>The Government remains committed to delivering nationwide gigabit connectivity as soon as possible. Our programme for gigabit-capable broadband has made dramatic progress. More than a third of UK premises now have access to gigabit-capable connections, up from nine per cent when the government took office in July 2019. By next year, more than half of all premises will have access. We are working with industry to target a minimum of 85% gigabit-capable coverage by 2025 but will seek to accelerate rollout further to get as close to 100% as possible.</p><p>We remain committed to investing £5bn in bringing gigabit coverage to the hardest to reach areas and will continue to work with suppliers to accelerate this investment.</p><p> </p> answering member printed Baroness Barran question first answered 22/12/2020 09:40:45 answering member 4703 label Biography information for Baroness Barran
tabling member	3396 label Biography information for Lord Clement-Jones

1270970

registered interest
date	14/12/2020
answering body	Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept id	10
answering dept short name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept sort name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
hansard heading	Broadband
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 10 December 2020 to Question 126027 on Broadband, what criteria he plans to use to determine whether to bring forward additional spending on accelerating the UKs fibre rollout.
tabling member constituency	Newcastle upon Tyne Central
tabling member printed	Chi Onwurah
uin	128956
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/01/2021 answer text <p>Homes and businesses that do not yet have access to superfast broadband will be prioritised for gigabit-capable delivery with connections capable of offering more than 1,000 megabits per second, or one gigabit per second.</p><p>There is a consultation underway looking at large regions of England that are most likely to attract commercial investment but requires subsidy to reach the hardest 40,000 to 80,000 premises in each area. In addition, there will be smaller contracts to connect around 1,000 to 8,000 premises, to stimulate competition across a wider range of small, medium-sized and rural specialist telecoms providers and help them to scale up. DCMS is also exploring how to make available a small number of contracts covering very large areas that are the least commercially attractive to build in. This would help make sure that no areas are left behind - even those where there is a limited prospect of competition.</p><p>As well as these supply-side market interventions, the government is also seeking industry views on how to extend its successful Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme from April 2021. The scheme allows people in rural areas to request a gigabit connection with the government subsidising the installation costs. This would help broadband suppliers respond to increasing consumer demand for gigabit broadband while the new procurements get up and running. The government will also continue its programme to connect public and community buildings - such as council houses, schools, libraries and GP surgeries - so they act as full-fibre ‘hubs’ from which industry can build their networks and connect surrounding homes and businesses.</p><p>These new procurements for gigabit infrastructure are set to begin in Spring 2021. The government will now seek industry and local authority views on the strategy to define small and large procurement boundaries, as well as ensuring that priority areas are served.</p><p>The recent Spending Review set out the timeline for how the first tranche of £1.2bn of funding will be made available to industry over 4 years. The commitment to spend £5 billion stands, and the government will accelerate this investment if industry can demonstrate it has the capacity to deliver further and faster.</p><p>In parallel to these interventions the Superfast programme has put in place a number of new contracts during 2020 for delivery between now and 2024. This obviously includes R100 in Scotland and Stratum in Northern Ireland. Less well publicised are a number of English and Welsh procurements such as Devon, Somerset, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, North Yorkshire, Cheshire and Lincolnshire. These new contracts are almost entirely for delivery of gigabit capable fibre. In total these represent c.500k premises with incremental delivery for the Superfast programme in lieu of the new Supply Side procurements under the UK Gigabit Programme.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Boston and Skegness answering member printed Matt Warman question first answered 11/01/2021 14:55:09 answering member 4361 label Biography information for Matt Warman
tabling member	4124 label Biography information for Chi Onwurah

1259199

registered interest
date	08/12/2020
answering body	Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept id	10
answering dept short name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept sort name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
hansard heading	Broadband
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the National Audit Office report, Improving Broadband, published 16 October 2020, what steps his Department taking to clawback the estimated £900 million from its Openreach contracts.
tabling member constituency	Newcastle upon Tyne Central
tabling member printed	Chi Onwurah
uin	126868
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/12/2020 answer text <p>The estimated £900m clawback from Superfast contracts is made predominantly of take-up clawback. Take-up clawback is paid on contracts where the supplier achieves higher customer take-up than originally expected. Clawback is declared by the supplier at agreed annual or bi-annual take-up review points, starting after the contract build has been completed and continuing for up to 7 years. This means that the full value of this clawback is currently not expected to be returned until around 2028.</p><p>Openreach is contractually obliged to return this funding to the public purse, holding all clawback contributions in a designated “Investment Account” which will be returned to Local Bodies no later than the end of the take-up review period. Total take-up clawback to be returned to the Department will be based on the funding contribution split for each contract. That is, the funding investment ratio, which varies under each contract, will determine the amounts of clawback to be retained by the Local Bodies and the amounts they will return to the Department over the next seven to eight financial years.</p><p>While the supplier holds the cash, it attracts interest, which also must be repaid. Openreach is now choosing to make cash repayments of take-up clawback realised to date in order to avoid high interest charges.</p><p>DCMS will reclaim the Department’s portion of cash amounts repaid by Openreach to the Local Bodies, the remaining portion sits with the public purse under the ownership of the respective Local Body. We are currently in the process of identifying and validating these repayments with the aim to invoice the Local Bodies for the Department’s portion in the new year. Once received, the amounts will be returned to HM Treasury.</p><p>The other clawback is implementation clawback (also referred to as underspends). The Local Bodies will return implementation clawback after a decision to discontinue with the furtherance of delivery within their area, or when they decide to withdraw their portion from the programme to be repurposed on other priorities.</p><p><strong> </strong></p> answering member constituency Boston and Skegness answering member printed Matt Warman question first answered 14/12/2020 18:47:02 answering member 4361 label Biography information for Matt Warman
tabling member	4124 label Biography information for Chi Onwurah

1258749

registered interest
date	07/12/2020
answering body	Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept id	10
answering dept short name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept sort name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
hansard heading	Broadband
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the remaining £3.8bn ringfenced for the UKs fibre rollout become available in the event that the sector demonstrates that rollout is progressing more quickly than is currently expected.
tabling member constituency	Newcastle upon Tyne Central
tabling member printed	Chi Onwurah
uin	126027
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/12/2020 answer text <p>We remain committed to investing £5bn in bringing gigabit-capable coverage to the hardest to reach areas as part of our plans for nationwide coverage as soon as possible. We will continue to work closely with industry to develop our £5 billion programme and accelerate our delivery for these areas to bring forward additional spend, wherever possible.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Boston and Skegness answering member printed Matt Warman question first answered 10/12/2020 16:34:16 answering member 4361 label Biography information for Matt Warman
tabling member	4124 label Biography information for Chi Onwurah

1258287

registered interest
date	03/12/2020
answering body	Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept id	10
answering dept short name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept sort name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
hansard heading	Broadband
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to publicise the (a) legal right for households to have an internet connection of at least 10Mbps and (b) entitlement to an upgrade to a fibre connection if other interventions fail; and if he will make a statement.
tabling member constituency	Christchurch
tabling member printed	Sir Christopher Chope
uin	124651
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/12/2020 answer text <p>The Universal Service Conditions set out by Ofcom require the two Universal Service Providers (BT and KCOM in the Hull area) to take ‘reasonable steps... to raise awareness of the potential availability of Broadband Services under these Conditions among members of the public’. As of September 2020, BT had directly contacted 47,000 premises that are eligible for the Universal Service Obligation.</p><p>In addition, Ofcom, who are responsible for implementing the Universal Service Obligation, are taking their own steps to publicise it through both their website and a localised, geo-targeted social media campaign.</p><p>The Universal Service Obligation is technology neutral. It provides a legal right to request a decent broadband connection delivering a minimum 10Mbps download speed. It does not limit the technologies that can be used by the Universal Service Provider to deliver the minimum specification or provide a legal right for consumers to request an upgrade to a fibre connection. That said, the Universal Service Providers have provided fibre connections under the Universal Service Obligation where this is the most efficient technology solution.</p><p>In addition, the government has a number of other programmes to help people upgrade to gigabit capable connections, including the rural Gigabit Voucher Scheme for example. This is in addition to our commitment to invest £5bn from April 2021 to bring gigabit coverage to the hardest to reach areas as part of the UK Gigabit Programme.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Boston and Skegness answering member printed Matt Warman question first answered 08/12/2020 16:16:02 answering member 4361 label Biography information for Matt Warman
tabling member	242 label Biography information for Sir Christopher Chope

1258288

registered interest
date	03/12/2020
answering body	Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept id	10
answering dept short name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept sort name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
hansard heading	Broadband
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate he has made of the number of households with an internet connection with a speed which cannot exceed 10Mbps; and if he will make a statement.
tabling member constituency	Christchurch
tabling member printed	Sir Christopher Chope
uin	124652
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/12/2020 answer text <p>Ofcom’s Connected Nations Report 2019 estimated that the number of households that could not receive a ‘decent’ broadband service providing at least 10Mbps download speeds from either a fixed line or Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) connection, and are therefore potentially eligible for a connection under the Universal Service Obligation, was 189,000 premises. Ofcom’s Connected Nations Report 2020 is due to be published before the end of the year, and we expect to see a further reduction in the number of premises that cannot access a broadband service that meets the specification under the Universal Service Obligation.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Boston and Skegness answering member printed Matt Warman question first answered 08/12/2020 15:02:54 answering member 4361 label Biography information for Matt Warman
tabling member	242 label Biography information for Sir Christopher Chope

1257633

registered interest
date	02/12/2020
answering body	Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept id	10
answering dept short name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept sort name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
hansard heading	Broadband
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what the average broadband speed is in England.
tabling member constituency	Hemsworth
tabling member printed	Jon Trickett
uin	124133
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/12/2020 answer text <p><strong></strong>Ofcom’s latest UK Home Broadband report found that the average download speed in the UK was 72 megabits per second. The report did not break this down by nation.</p><p>In terms of access, ThinkBroadband estimates that a third of premises in England are now connected to gigabit-capable networks, while superfast broadband is available to 97% of English premises.</p><p><strong><strong></strong><br></strong></p> answering member constituency Boston and Skegness answering member printed Matt Warman question first answered 09/12/2020 16:29:24 answering member 4361 label Biography information for Matt Warman
tabling member	410 label Biography information for Jon Trickett