Broadband and Mobile Connectivity: Rural Areas

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Anna Sabine]

That does sound very unfortunate. I know of villages in my constituency where vouchers have been applied for and received, but it is taking so long to get internet coverage that the vouchers are expiring. Clearly, there are a few voucher-related issues.

My second ask relates to concerning reports from the telecoms industry that the remaining Project Gigabit fund, some £2 billion, might be at risk in the upcoming spending review. Any reduction in that funding would seriously undermine efforts to deliver universal full-fibre connectivity. If such cuts were made, it is highly unlikely that our more remote rural communities would ever see a fibre connection. Will the Minister confirm whether the funding will be protected?

Finally, as we continue the digital switchover, what specific support will the Government provide to ensure that the elderly, the vulnerable and those in isolated rural areas are not left behind?

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

On the matter of the radio teleswitch service, there are 790 meters in my constituency still running off RTS, which operates Economy 7 meters, and across Wales there are 11,000. The Government do not know how many households depend on those meters for their heating. In many areas, particularly rural areas, that are off-grid and without any signal, smart meters will not work. How will we ensure that these often very vulnerable people are kept safe?

[Anna Sabine]

That is an extremely good point; perhaps the Minister will be able to address it in his response.

In today’s hyperconnected world, no community should be excluded. We speak of self-driving cars and space tourism, so clearly the technology exists; it is not a question of possibility, but a question of political will.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Well, you often do give advice, Mr Stuart, but that is another matter.

We will have to take this conversation elsewhere, because I am not sure whether that is a Project Gigabit-delivered contract or whether Openreach is rolling out its own commercial decision—[Interruption.] I will not take another intervention because I do not have very much time.

Sometimes all those elements change because the commercial operators say, “Well, actually, we have realised that this business park”—which is outside a town and feels more rural even though it is sort of theoretically attached to a town—“isn’t going to be connected unless we connect another bit that is contiguous.” They constantly change their commercial decisions. We try to help them to make sensible decisions that fit with our subsidy plans, but it is not always easy. That also applies to the shared rural network, which obviously deals with mobile connectivity. A large number of masts have been put up through the shared rural network, including in large chunks of Wales.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I congratulate the Minister’s BDUK officers, who are really useful. The radio teleswitch service switch-off will affect people, and it is starting to happen on 30 June—just over a month from now. There are 11,000 households in Wales that are presently dependent on it, and if they do not have access to signal, as many off-grid homes do not, it will have an immediate effect on them. I beg the Minister to discuss with his colleagues in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero how to resolve that for vulnerable people.

[Chris Bryant]

I am very grateful for the last bit of that, because the right hon. Lady reminds me that I need to talk to my colleagues in DESNZ about that. It is not directly my responsibility but, if she writes to me about it, I am happy to get it to DESNZ or to ensure she gets a response from DESNZ as soon as possible. She makes a perfectly legitimate point, and we need to get that right. I thought she was talking about a different switch-off, which is why I was confused.

Reporting of mobile coverage is something that frustrates many of us. The Ofcom site may say, “96% of all four networks available everywhere across the whole of your constituency,” but I say, “No, you can’t get a signal anywhere in Hannah Street in the middle of Porth—end of story.” I have been in discussion with Ofcom, and we have exchanged letters, which I have placed in the Library of the House of Commons, about how it is going to change its reporting.

That reporting has historically been based in part on two things: first, the coverage predicted by the mobile phone companies, which might not necessarily match people’s experience; and, secondly, 2 megabits per second, which frankly is of no earthly use to anybody—most of us now want 5 megabits per second. From about the middle of June, Ofcom will be reporting across the whole of the country on 2 megabits per second and 5 megabits per second, so people will have a much clearer understanding of the situation on the ground. I hope that might drive further commercial investment from the mobile phone operators, which will say, “You know what? We need to make sure we have more masts in this area, because frankly it’s not good enough.”

The hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) mentioned Chichester; I have Godalming in my head, because I was at the Pizza Express there one Saturday evening and I could not order a taxi because there was no mobile signal at all. You would think that in the middle of Godalming, with the former Chancellor of the Exchequer as its Member of Parliament, that would have been sorted. There are lots of places like that around the country where the mobile signal simply is not good enough and we need to strengthen it.

Much of that will be me trying to get the mobile companies to work harder to make sure that that works across the whole of the country. I want to work out with them what some of the problems are, and whether those are to do with the planning issues that have already been referred to. It seems to me bonkers that we would even consider building a new housing estate without making sure that it has proper mobile signal available and proper connectivity of every kind. One would think that that would just be quintessentially part of the offer. These are all issues that we are going to address.

The hon. Member for Frome and East Somerset asked me three specific questions—I try my best to answer specific questions when people ask them, in the hope that that will encourage people to ask specific questions. First, she asked me about the promised map. That should be happening fairly soon. “Soon”, obviously, is a parliamentary word that has a moderate quantity of meaning, but I am trying to make it as fast as I possibly can. The advantage that will come roughly in the middle of June is that Ofcom will be providing a completely different understanding of mobile coverage in all our constituencies, which will be helpful.

I too thank everybody in BDUK; I think that when we have done the drop-in sessions for MPs, everybody has found it very helpful. It has been able to provide specific details about what is happening in a particular village and a particular street. We will continue to do that, so I would say, “If anybody has not booked in, please do.”

The hon. Member for Frome and East Somerset asked me what would happen in the spending review. I will not answer that question, because I do not know what will happen in the spending review. As I said, our ambition is to get full fibre to as much of the population as we possibly can, as fast as we possibly can, and our ambition is to get to 5G stand-alone. For many public services, 5G stand-alone would be far more useful than a version of 3G that is not very efficient and not very functioning. For instance, the police would be able to use 5G stand-alone. People would be able to download video, to take part in video conferencing and so on.

We also need to do better at enabling people to have mobile signal inside their home and not just outside their home. I live in Wales and my house is stone built, which means whatever signal I get in the garden is not very available inside. I moved to VoIP, or voice over internet protocol, because I know how to do that—but of course many people do not, so we need to enable that more.