Telecommunications Infrastructure (Relief from Non-Domestic Rates) Bill

Debate between Huw Merriman and Richard Graham

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 10th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be the last Back Bencher to be called in the debate, which has been incredibly interesting, although I think that, at times, the connection between the clauses in the Bill and the contents of speeches was well and truly lost. There was a suggestion that constituents of ours would have been able to watch the debate online. If that is the case, given certain parts of it, I find myself feeling sympathy for the 93% of the public who have such access. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), who is no longer present, said that innovation would permit constituents to watch the entirety of his speech online. Conservative Members speculated on whether that same innovation would allow the battery in his phone to last quite as long. Perhaps there is still some way to go.

None the less, this has been an interesting debate, and I am delighted to be able to use the last few minutes to further it. Despite great work by my local authority, East Sussex County Council, and indeed by the Government, too many of my constituents do not have a connection to fast broadband. My constituents’ age profile is high, and in order to balance our local economy we must encourage more working-age people to come to live and work in East Sussex. It is not too far from London, but, from a commuting perspective, particularly given our travails with Southern rail, it is too far to be attractive to many such younger working-age people. My constituency is fortunate in that 75% of it is designated as an area of outstanding beauty, so in that sense it draws people to want to come there to set up their own businesses, but they will not do so without the connectivity of superfast broadband.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend describes a constituency that is different from mine, but in many ways we have similar issues. In Gloucester, we struggle with the black spots that often arise in urban environments. Most of the city is well-covered but there are certain black spots where people cannot access broadband that enables them to work from home. That is similar to the problem that he describes.

[Huw Merriman]

My hon. Friend is right: urban areas, as well as rural ones, will not continue to regenerate without this problem being fixed.

I welcome the introduction of the Bill and the granting of business rate relief as a result for a five-year period on fibre and 5G installations. That should act as the further incentive that we in my constituency need to provide a fix.

I also welcome the previous Bill’s introduction of the new universal service obligation, which, again, should give the last 7% faster broadband. As has been said, this type of connectivity infrastructure is, in the modern age, akin for our constituents to the delivery of a new road or railway in the past. It is vital for the entire economy that we do not leave these constituents behind.

As well as recognising the investment from the Government via this Bill, and previous funding initiatives, I commend Conservative-run East Sussex County Council and Labour-run Brighton and Hove Borough Council for working together to help businesses and properties across East Sussex to access faster broadband. Through their e-Sussex project, my county has allocated £34 million in funding for areas that are too expensive for the market to upgrade itself. Every exchange in East Sussex will be included, and the current project will cover an area of 660 square miles and over 66,500 premises. It will install over 400 new fibre telecoms cabinets and other structures and will lay over 1,000 km of fibre—the distance between Brighton and Berlin.

The first e-Sussex contract is achieving excellent results in bringing better, more reliable fibre broadband to many areas that would not otherwise benefit from upgraded services. However, there remain properties that are hard to reach—for example, where a property is too far from the upgraded cabinet to benefit from any speed uplift. “Hard to reach” generally means too expensive for the public purse to fund. East Sussex has therefore signed a second contract with BT for further investment, so that an additional 5,000 homes and businesses in East Sussex will be able to access high-speed fibre broadband.

There has been much talk today of political parties coming together over a common interest. Perhaps that local example is a positive illustration of the power of working together.

[Richard Graham]

Have my hon. Friend’s council and the council in Brighton introduced in their planning requirements an absolute requirement on all developers to provide superfast broadband? This is an area where many of our councils around the country could do more, and I would be interested to learn of his experience.

[Huw Merriman]

I do not believe those councils have, but my hon. Friend touches on another issue. I am referring to East Sussex County Council and Brighton and Hove Borough Council, but outside of Brighton but within East Sussex it is the district councils that would have the planning condition powers to which he refers. Therefore, I doubt that those councils have done so, but this is perhaps a good example. of where districts can work better together with their county cousins.

This might seem like great news for East Sussex, but I am afraid we are starting from a very low base in terms of where we are operating from. The recent report by the consumer organisation Which? found that Rother District Council’s geographical area, which covers the bulk of the 200 square miles of my constituency, is in the bottom 10 of all districts and boroughs in the entire British Isles for average broadband speeds. Rother joins the highlands, the Shetlands and the Orkney Isles in the bottom 10 performing areas. In contrast, the residents of Tamworth, which tops the list for speeds with an average of 30 megabits per second, are much more fortunate. The average speed for Rother is less than 10 megabits per second.

Bearing in mind that 10 megabits per second is deemed to be the minimum acceptable standard by Ofcom, I very much welcome the Minister’s commitment that 100% of my constituents will receive 10 megabits per second by 2020. The Which? report suggests that the increased performance for the Rother District Council area will be vital if the Government are to meet their 100% target. May I therefore put in a blatant invitation to the Minister to meet me to discuss what help could be offered to my constituents in Rother, in addition to the provisions in the Bill and the universal service obligation, to enable me to assist the Government in meeting their target?

In conclusion, I welcome the Bill as part of a package of proactive measures from this Government to deliver faster broadband. I should also mention—notwithstanding the fact that I just said, “in conclusion”—that I welcome the further reforms to the business rate mechanism. I do not wish to wander too far from the topic, but I can think of many examples of business rates having an impact on businesses in which services are being offered. We should not forget, for example, that Members of Parliament are subject to business rates, as I found out to my personal cost when I exceeded my IPSA budget for my staff office. I therefore absolutely welcome the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) that business rates should be linked to turnover, rather than to premises. That would certainly help my constituency. As a further meander, Mr Speaker—