Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) broadband, and (2) mobile phone, connectivity in rural areas.

Over 73% of premises in the UK can now access gigabit-capable broadband, which is a huge leap forward from January 2019, when coverage was just 6%. The competitive and pro-growth regulatory environment we have created is enabling suppliers to expand their networks to reach more homes and businesses, and we are making excellent progress with Project Gigabit, delivering fast, reliable broadband to rural and hard-to-reach parts of the UK.

We are awarding a series of contracts to suppliers to deliver gigabit-capable connectivity in areas to which the market will not go without subsidy. We have already awarded six contracts and, in total, have made almost £1 billion of funding available through our live contracts and procurements, covering up to 681,500 premises. We have also recently increased the maximum value of vouchers through the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme to support suppliers to connect premises in particularly hard-to-reach areas.

Mobile phone connectivity continues to improve in rural areas via the Government's £1 billion deal with mobile network operators to deliver the Shared Rural Network. The programme will see operators collectively increase the UK’s 4G geographic mobile network coverage to 95%; this will reduce rural ‘not spots’, levelling up coverage between rural and urban areas.

The operators have already deployed more than 150 new sites and have upgraded over 1,300 sites across the UK since the programme began in 2020. 4G coverage across the UK has increased to 92.2%, as the early impact from the Shared Rural Network took effect.