Rural Phone and Broadband Connectivity
Debate between David Heath and Graham Stuart(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Stuart
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, the only people I have heard who felt that that programme was on track to be delivered were representatives of the Labour party. It is a shame that there are not more of those representatives in the Chamber today to intervene and explain precisely how it was going to be delivered. The hon. Gentleman is an excellent advocate for a difficult cause, and I respect that as a politician, but the truth is, as he knows, that the record of his party was weak. The record of the Conservative party is distinctly better, but we should recognise the context. We are all saying to the Government and to the Minister that it is not enough; we must go further and that is why we are here today. It is great to have the shadow Minister here today, even if we do not have any of his colleagues—[Hon. Members: “There is one!”] I apologise.
We have the opportunity to put an ambitious aim in all the manifestos. Let us ensure that people are not isolated and that we close the gap.
Mr Heath
May I take the hon. Gentleman back to the question of the economy and growing businesses? One quick boost that we could give to a lot of small businesses would be to encourage entrepreneurs who want to provide broadband by a wi-fi connection to places that will never gain from 3 miles of copper cable to the nearest exchange. I met such an entrepreneur only last week who was to provide for about half a dozen villages in my area. I would love to point him towards the Government funding that would give him the start that would enable that to happen, but at the moment it is not obviously there.
Mr Stuart
My hon. Friend is quite right. One of the challenges for the Government is that they are not very good at dealing with small organisations. I have a company offering a service in my area called Quickline. It contacted me and said that it would love to launch a hub in a local pub and then to offer it out to the surrounding community. I was rather rotten to the person who approached me, as I thought they were looking to do it somewhere quite close to Beverley, which would be easier. I said, “What about Holmpton, down near Withernsea?” I thought that it was about the most challenging place I could find for them and, to be fair, they agreed. The George and Dragon had that hub installed a couple of years ago and provided the offer in an area that was otherwise a not spot. It is difficult for Government, who have to secure and assure the use of public money, but we must find a way of dealing with small companies, some of which might go down as well as up. We must take some risks if we are to deliver this goal.
House of Lords Reform Bill
Debate between David Heath and Graham Stuart(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Heath
I will return to the issue of the programme motion in just a moment, but let me deal first with the rather familiar arguments that have been marshalled.
There are those who say that they are for reform, but not yet. They say it is too precipitate and that there has been insufficient scrutiny. This process has been about as precipitate as the reckless progress of a particularly arthritic slug. We have had what I would describe as pre-legislative scrutiny on this for 101 years. This is not a quick process.
Mr Graham Stuart
Following up the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), will the hon. Gentleman please answer on the issue of the guillotine? Why, when he was always against it in principle before, is he now in favour of it?