Oral Answers to Questions

Kirstene Hair Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Far from the way in which the right hon. Lady has portrayed the situation, since 2010 we have seen 600,000 fewer people in absolute poverty—a record low—300,000 fewer working-age adults in absolute poverty, and 200,000 fewer children in absolute poverty. We have also seen families getting into work: there are nearly 1 million fewer workless households as a result of the actions of this Conservative Government.

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

Q9. As the Prime Minister is aware, Scotland is lagging behind the rest of the United Kingdom in the roll-out of superfast broadband. My constituency of Angus is even further behind the poor Scottish average. A huge volume of my casework comes from one of my largest towns, Arbroath, where 20,000 of my constituents reside. It could hardly be deemed a remote area. Will the Prime Minister confirm that the next generation of UK funding to support the roll-out of Scotland’s full fibre broadband will bypass the shambolic Scottish Government and go directly to local authorities so that businesses and residents in my constituency of Angus get the broadband they deserve?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to confirm that to my hon. Friend. She will know that we are making progress on this in Scotland, but we need to go further. Programmes such as local full fibre networks and 5G will allocate funding directly to local projects, based on the quality of the bids put forward. The Minister for Digital, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), recently confirmed in the House that we will deliver the next generation of technology directly to local authorities in Scotland, rather than going through the Scottish Government. We will make sure that Scotland is not left behind.