Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will bring forward legislative proposals for an independent consumer advocate for the telecoms industry.
Answered by Margot James
The Communications Consumer Panel currently provides Ofcom with advice about the interests of consumers in the communications sector, as required under the Communications Act 2003. The Consumer Green paper will tackle areas where markets are not working well for consumers, including in the communications sector.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether his Department plans to take steps to end the practice of people continuing to be charged for the cost of their mobile handset after the end of the minimum contract period.
Answered by Margot James
The Government’s Manifesto committed to making it clear when a mobile customer has paid off the price of their handset. This is an area where Government recognises that action is needed to improve protections for consumers. The Department is currently considering this issue. We will listen to the views of stakeholders and are working closely with Ofcom, as the UK’s independent communications regulator, and mobile service providers to find a solution that protects consumers.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent steps she has taken to reduce nuisance telephone calls to elderly or vulnerable residents.
Answered by Matt Hancock
We are determined to tackle the problem of nuisance calls, and have allocated £500,000 to the National Trading Standards Scams Team to provide call blocking devices to vulnerable people in all parts of the UK – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The devices will be rolled out nationwide over the next two years and an evaluation report will be submitted to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on their effectiveness. This is one of a number of measures the Government are taking on to tackle this complex problem. Others included:
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to incentivise innovation in internet communications infrastructure.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The Government is committed to creating a world-leading digital economy with connectivity wherever people live, travel and work. As part of this, we are investing £1.1bn to boost the UK's digital infrastructure and encourage innovation, including £200m to develop ways to accelerate market delivery of new full fibre broadband networks. Alongside the Spring 2017 Budget, we announced our new 5G Strategy setting out steps for the UK to become a world leader in the next wave of mobile technology. The Budget also included up to £16m for leading UK research institutions to cooperate on a cutting edge 5G facility to trial and demonstrate this exciting technology.
We have also conducted seven pilot projects to test different approaches to providing superfast broadband in the hardest to reach areas, forging new, innovative partnerships and showing that smaller suppliers can successfully deliver infrastructure. In addition, the government continues to work with industry to identify and reduce barriers to deployment of communications infrastructure and we have made significant progress, such as reducing planning burdens and introducing a new 100% business rates relief for new full fibre infrastructure for five years.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to her Department's press release of 22 December 2016, whether the £440 million made available for superfast rural broadband only includes costs for traditional and fibre-optic cables; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The Superfast Rollout programme is technology neutral. This could include Fibre-to-the-cabinet or fibre-to-the-premises solutions along with GFAST, Remote nodes and Fixed wireless or a mix of these
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to her Department's press release of 22 December 2016, whether the £440 million made available for superfast rural broadband will include funding to cover difficult installations or provide access to isolated neighbourhoods.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The money returned to projects by efficiency savings and gain-share will be invested using the same criteria set out for the earlier phases of superfast rollout. This means it will focus on areas where there is not commercial competition, and prioritised by value-for-money installations to connect the largest number of premises who do not receive superfast speeds. Urban areas have generally been excluded from Superfast Programmes as commercial competition already exists in these locations.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to her Department's news story of 22 December 2016, how the £440 million made available for superfast rural broadband will be (a) allocated between and (b) managed by local authorities.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The money will be returned to local authorities through their existing broadband contracts, based on the levels of savings achieved and levels of take-up, and will be available for them to reinvest in further superfast rollout.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if her Department will undertake an impact assessment of macro not-spot roaming in order to improve mobile coverage.
Answered by Matt Hancock
Improving mobile connectivity across the UK is a priority for the Government. Roaming was considered in 2014 and rejected as it risked discouraging investment and increasing complete not spots. The Government instead favoured legally binding licence obligations on each MNO to provide voice/SMS text coverage to at least 90% of the UK’s landmass by end-2017. The licence obligations arising from the December 2014 agreement have locked in investment of £5 billion and are delivering improved coverage across the UK. Ofcom's 2016 Connected Nations Report shows that 99% of UK premises now have indoor voice coverage and 96% have indoor 4G data coverage. Our recent reforms to mobile planning laws and proposed reforms of the Electronic Communications Code, will support further investment and improvements in connectivity across the UK and reduce not spots.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the report of the National Infrastructure Commission, entitled Connected Future, published on 14 December 2016, what her Department's plans are for preparing the UK's mobile telephone infrastructure for universal geographical coverage of 5G.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The Government recognises the importance of people having connectivity where they live, work and travel and is taking firm action to improve this right across the UK.
The legally binding agreement that we reached with industry in 2014 locked in over £5bn of investment in mobile infrastructure and will result in nearly at least 90% voice/SMS text coverage of the UK’s landmass by the end of 2017
But we agree with NIC that there is still further to go. We want the UK to become a world leader in 5G, which is why we announced over £1bn of funding at the Autumn Statement to support the deployment of the next generation of digital infrastructure, including an ambitious programme of 5G testbeds.
We will consider the NIC's recommendations carefully.
Asked by: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Government is taking to make operating in areas with poor or non-existent mobile coverage commercially viable for mobile operators.
Answered by Matt Hancock
Improving mobile connectivity across the UK, especially in those areas where coverage is poor, is a priority for the Government. The licence obligations arising from the December 2014 agreement have locked in investment of £5 billion and are delivering improved coverage across the UK.
To support industry, our regulatory reforms to mobile planning laws in England, which came into force on 24 November, and the proposed reform of the Electronic Communications Code, currently being taken forward through the Digital Economy Bill, are making it easier and cheaper for mobile operators to roll out new infrastructure, and extend or replace existing infrastructure. This will help tackle not-spots and deliver improved connectivity that people need across the UK.