Alex Chalk
Main Page: Alex Chalk (Conservative - Cheltenham)(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that in the conversation about superfast broadband we should not lose sight of those people who do not have broadband—by that, I mean a connection at a speed of 2 megabits per second? Cheltenham is not wildly rural, yet there are people there who are on dial-up speeds. It is no good saying that 93% are on superfast broadband, as that could obscure the fact that lots of people really have no broadband at all, as is the case in my constituency. Funding has to be sent towards those people in e-poverty as a priority, to take them out of the digital dark age.
Neil Parish
If my wife was here, she would be reinforcing exactly what my hon. Friend is saying. Every time she gets on to our computer and it does not dial up properly or get any connection, she says, “What are you doing about it?” so hon. Members can see how I have been encouraged to hold this debate. He is right; what is driving everybody so crazy is that some people have superfast broadband, some people have some form of connection and some people have either a very slow connection or no connection at all. As we get towards 2 megabits, the argument then will be whether it is 24 megabits, 50 megabits, or 100 megabits. I am not the most technical man in the world, but I imagine that those are getting faster—but seriously, this is a problem and we somehow have to get everybody on to a reasonable speed and connection for broadband before we drive everything forward. Otherwise, people will be treated doubly badly as a result. That is what we are all worried about in our individual constituencies, and I am sure that the Minister is taking note of that.