Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether her Department is taking steps to help support people who cannot access fibre broadband and are unable to (a) set up a community scheme and (b) fund the groundworks themselves in Congleton constituency.

As part of Project Gigabit, the Government’s £5 billion mission to deliver lightning-fast, reliable broadband across the UK, we have begun launching procurements that give subsidies to broadband suppliers to build gigabit-capable infrastructure to premises that will not be reached by suppliers’ commercial plans alone.

The constituency of Congleton is included in our Cheshire procurement. We are currently engaging with the market and expect to launch the procurement in the summer.

Premises across Cheshire are also continuing to benefit from an earlier Superfast Programme contract being delivered by the supplier Airband, which is expected to provide access to gigabit-capable broadband to almost 6,000 premises by March 2024.