Broadband Rollout: Devon and Somerset

Neil Parish Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the rollout of broadband in Devon and Somerset.

I want to start by speaking about the importance of broadband. Covid-19 has accelerated the need for faster broadband connections. Whether it is for online voting in Parliament, meeting on Zoom or online shopping, we are more reliant than ever on the internet. Even I have taught myself how to use Zoom—you will not realise what that involved, Ms Fovargue. Doing Zoom meetings in the office or at home on the farm has had the added benefit of my being able to put up the Devon flag behind me.

Living on a farm, I am fortunate to have been connected through a fibre-to-the-premises connection in the last few weeks, but I want all my constituents in Tiverton and Honiton to have the same. Unfortunately, the rollout of broadband has been anything but superfast and too many people do not have access to superfast connections. Nationally, 95% of premises can receive a superfast broadband speed, but in Tiverton and Honiton the figure is just 82%. We are 627th out of constituencies in the UK, and we are 9th lowest in England for superfast availability. In Bampton, just 60% of properties have superfast broadband access. In Beer, it is just 68%. In Kilmington, Colyton and Uplyme, it is just 39%.

Two other constituencies in Devon—Torridge and West Devon, and Central Devon—have even lower superfast broadband speeds available than Tiverton and Honiton. And I expect that my hon. Friends the Members for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) and for East Devon (Simon Jupp) will probably say that the connection there is not brilliant. It is bound to be brilliant in Totnes, of course.

I appreciate that the constituencies in Devon and Somerset are rural, but the Government have been making promises on this matter for years. In 2010, when I first became an MP, the coalition Government promised that the UK would have the best superfast broadband in Europe by 2015. The UK is currently 13th in Europe, behind Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. In 2015, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), who is now the Prime Minister, arrived in Parliament and quickly became co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on broadband and digital communication. He will know more than most that the rollout of broadband has been far too slow, complicated and bureaucratic. In fairness to the Prime Minister, he has put resources in to put that right.

In Devon and Somerset, we have seen Connecting Devon and Somerset promising—again—the world for years, but consistently missing its own deadlines, avoiding scrutiny and then putting out press releases about how fantastically well everything is going. I am afraid there is very little credibility left. In 2012, £27 million of state aid funding was provided by the Government to fund the Connecting Devon and Somerset phase 2 rollout of superfast broadband, and we were all very excited by it. That was eight years ago, and there has not been a great deal of progress since.

In November 2014, Connecting Devon and Somerset launched its first invitation to tender for phase 2, but cancelled it the next month. In 2015, CDS began negotiations with BT Openreach to hand it all phase 2 contracts. Those negotiations then collapsed: BT said that CDS was not prepared to pay enough money, and CDS claimed that BT was not investing enough of its own. There was great history between both organisations. I imagine the fault was on both sides, but that is a real problem.

Further on, in December 2016, five phase 2 contracts were awarded to Gigaclear, and one in north Devon was awarded to Airband. I will put my hand on my heart and say that I was happy to bring in Gigaclear, but listen to what happened next: in September 2018, CDS suspended all five Gigaclear contracts after Gigaclear requested an extension. There is no doubt that Gigaclear overstretched and was under-capitalised, but, again, that extension request beyond the completion date of 31 December 2020. Now we would think that that date was quite close, would we not, Minister?

In December 2019, after cancelling the Gigaclear contracts, CDS launched another tendering process to award the phase 2 contracts. The announcement was meant to be made last month, but we are still waiting for it—all the time, there are delays. Instead of blaming other people for their failures, we need full transparency from those at Connecting Devon and Somerset, and we need the Minister to whip them into shape. I know that the Minister has put someone from his Department on the CDS board, but he ought to take over the board if he wants to make any difference. I do not believe in taking prisoners, as the Minister knows, and I have no intention of taking prisoners today, because I have lived through all this. I actually supported CDS in the past, but it has not delivered.

Throughout the process, there has been great concern about value for money. I am glad that we have a responsible local council in Devon that always thinks carefully about taxpayers’ money, but because of the delays over the last eight years, constituents have had no option but to pay for alternatives. Business and residents have had to pay Openreach themselves to move into the 21st century, forming community fibre partnerships. I pay great tribute to those who have done so and to the Government for putting forward the voucher system.

We have had other entrants into the market, such as Jurassic Fibre, which has connected a lot in Honiton and Axminster and has done a good job. Great companies such as Jurassic Fibre are trying to connect people with faster broadband because the local government scheme is failing to act quickly enough. Of course, as we connect all those industrial states and take out the bigger sections, we are also making it more expensive to deliver the whole project. Every year, as we delay, it basically gets more expensive.

Even if CDS did manage to announce new phase 2 contracts this side of Christmas, we have already been told that there is a six-month implementation period. How much longer an implementation period do we need, Minister? We have had eight years already! Then, the contracts will take at least four years to complete, taking us to 2024. Is that acceptable, Minister? Was the whole point of cancelling the Gigaclear contracts not that December 2020 was too late? Now we are talking about 2024.

Surely, the system is far too bureaucratic and slow. I know that this is very politically incorrect, but was it not George Bernard Shaw who said, “If you lose one wife, that’s acceptable. If you lose two, that’s careless”? How many contracts does CDS need to lose before it is considered careless? Like I say, it is all terribly politically incorrect, but hon. Members can see the point I am making.

What more can be done to bring CDS to heel and speed up the entire process? We need to build in the more rural and disadvantaged areas of the UK, where the commercial market will not build without subsidy. That is what the Minister and the Government have been doing.

I understand that we have set £5 billion of funding to deliver broadband to the final 20% of properties that will not be reached by the commercial networks, but in the 2020 spending review last week the Chancellor allocated just £1.2 billion of that funding for the years 2020 to 2025. Will the Minister please explain why that funding seems to have been cut? Will it be replaced? The Government have also downgraded their ambitions in the national infrastructure strategy to 85% gigabit-capable coverage by 2025, instead of 100%. Again, why has that happened?

The danger is that broadband companies will concentrate on building their networks in areas where they can make a commercial return—who can blame them for that?—and put their plans for rural Britain on the backburner. When the other companies that are building in my constituency are asked about the Blackdown hills, all of a sudden they go very quiet and say, “That may take a little longer.”

I thank the Minister for being here today—I am sure he is enjoying it. We all want to get broadband to our constituents. I have made light of it, but far too many mistakes have been made over the past 10 years and I want to avoid that happening again. What reassurances can the Minister give my constituents today that the Government, through Connecting Devon and Somerset, have a workable plan that will deliver, change lives for the better and connect them and the constituents of my fellow MPs from Devon and Somerset? Joking aside, it has been too long. A lot of public money has been put into it and it has not delivered. Not all the problems are with Connecting Devon and Somerset, but it has been a very sorry story. I do not want to come here in a few years’ time to make the same speech and say, “We’ve wasted more years.” Please, Minister, can we have some answers today?

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[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

My constituency’s connectivity means it is ranked 634th of the 650 UK constituencies.

[Neil Parish]

You beat me.

[Selaine Saxby]

I did beat you.

Almost a fifth of residents still do not receive the universal service obligation’s 10 megabits per second. Our average download speed is less than 37 megabits per second, compared with a UK average of 61. The only thing slower than our broadband speed is attempts to connect properties by CDS. I am delighted that things are now progressing, and I recognise the complexities of procurement in this area, but an alarming amount of time seems to have been taken, still to be selecting suppliers.

I note that major players in the sector are not participating in the current procurement process, because we are a whole technology behind in Devon and Somerset. I am determined that North Devon will not continue to languish at the bottom of the broadband league, and have taken it upon myself to connect my own community to fibre broadband through a community fibre partnership, in conjunction with Openreach. Using our Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport vouchers and working directly with the industry seems to be the most likely method of connecting up my rural constituency; but the continuation of the Government’s voucher schemes is key to enabling communities to get connected. I hope that the Minister will be in a position to confirm that today.

Last week’s announcement that only 85% of the country will be connected by 2025 rather fills me with dread, as there seems to be an inevitability about hard-to-reach rural constituencies such as mine continuing to be left behind. Without the 100% target and full £5 billion commitment, will the industry be able to commit the resources and train the army of new engineers needed for even 85% to be reached? Given that CDS is still so busy with the previous technology, I ask that someone else manage the procurement and delivery of high-speed fibre in North Devon, and that that should be rapidly instigated, as the most commercially viable parts of my constituency are now being over-fibred by competing fibre companies, leaving harder-to-reach communities even less likely to see fibre.

When we talk about levelling up North Devon we are not expecting a new railway or motorway. We desperately need broadband to enable our businesses, young people and communities to have access to what other parts of the country take for granted. I spend far too long lobbying the Minister for better broadband, and I shamelessly do the same today. Please speed up everything to do with broadband in North Devon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

I really am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that timely intervention. I meant to say that I felt for the experience, but I am keen to feel the actual experience in the gorgeous surroundings that he has so well described. The products and services sound so very attractive.

We have had 10 wasted years for telecoms infrastructure under this Government. I was a chartered engineer who worked in telecoms for 20 years before coming into Parliament, which I mention from time to time, and the decade that I have been in Parliament has coincided with a rapid relative decline in the quality of our telecommunications infrastructure. Labour made great strides in building a digital economy. Our Communications Act 2003 set out the strategy and vision for a decade. Our office of the internet was a world leader, and we oversaw the roll-out of the first generation of broadband to more than 50% of households by 2009.

Labour’s plans would have seen two-thirds of UK households have access to services of up to 40 megabits by 2015. Unfortunately, that is now not the case, consecutive Tory Governments having squandered that world-leading position. Several Members mentioned the need for effective competition and not the over-building of fibre to one home, and not the absence of any competition or a monopoly provider. Under Labour, we had competitive infrastructure competitions, including the local loop, but since then we have seen U-turns, dither and delay in infrastructure roll-out, including the BDUK scheme, which re-emphasised Openreach—indeed, BT—effectively as a monopoly provider. All phase 1 contracts and funding under the scheme went to British Telecom, and the Public Accounts Committee warned that that restricted the Department’s ability to insist on value for money. Will the Minister set out his strategy for encouraging effective competition, particularly in rural broadband? It is concerning to see that as a country that invented the fibre-optic cable—

[Neil Parish]

I shared the hon. Lady’s concern that Openreach had too much of a monopoly, but I have to say that since Openreach has stepped back from connecting Devon and Somerset, the situation has actually got worse, not better. Openreach is training 5,000 engineers every year, so there is a real need for it. Now that it has been split away reasonably successfully from BT, we can use Openreach much more.

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Gentleman shows an understanding of network competition that I rarely find in this House. I can only agree with him that it is necessary to have effective separation. If Openreach is effectively separated and open to different over-the-top providers, having a monopoly position does not lead to monopolistic behaviours such as raising rents or offering low customer service, but it is necessary for that separation to occur. As I think has been said, it is also the case that BT responded to many of the Building Digital UK bids and ended up having a monopoly position. That was BT, not simply Openreach.

I want to focus for a couple of minutes on the economic importance of rolling out broadband. In 2018, the Conservative-run Somerset County Council highlighted the worry about regional productivity in its economic development strategy, which said:

“We are not as productive a District as we could be. Evidence shows a relative lack of dynamism in our economy with productivity levels below our potential and lower than those of the South-West and national levels.”

Across the country, only 8% to 10% of premises are connected to full-fibre broadband, compared with 97% in Japan. We are an innovative nation, but our innovation needs the digital platform to allow our small businesses to grow, particularly as our economy shifts online and we face the challenges and opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution, with its implications for everything from manufacturing to smart cities and addressing climate change.

I do not want to reiterate the Prime Minister’s sad history of flip-flopping over promises on delivering full fibre, but I will summarise it. Full fibre was supposed to be delivered by 2025, but that was then downgraded to gigabit-capable broadband to every home by 2019. As we have heard, only last week the Government sneaked out the Chancellor’s spending review plans to water down their broadband promise instead of keeping that manifesto commitment, and a smaller proportion of money has been made available.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton cited George Bernard Shaw. My recollection is that it was Oscar Wilde who wrote:

“To lose one parent…may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

That quote is absolutely appropriate in this case, because although we might understand one change in the Government’s commitment to broadband, a series of changes is either carelessness—which is negligent, given the importance of digital infrastructure to our economy—or, I am afraid, deliberately misleading.

I hope the Minister can set out how we will achieve in Devon and Somerset the digital infrastructure that is so richly deserved. I also hope he will talk a bit about the divide in digital skills, because as well as having the infrastructure, we need to ensure that everyone has access to the digital skills that mean they can use the infrastructure and reap the economic benefits. I am particularly concerned about access to infrastructure at home, which enables Zoom meetings and online education. Some 50% of rural premises have patchy and unreliable mobile reception, so I hope the Minister will say a word about 5G roll-out and the delays in coverage. We cannot allow the digital divide to exacerbate the current rural divides. I hope that the Minister will mention the universal service obligation, which the Government launched in March to great fanfare and which allows rural households to demand connectivity from BT. As I am aware from the north-east, however, an estimated 60,000 households across the country may be charged up to £100,000 for installation under that initiative. Does that count as a universal service obligation? How much does the Minister believe is too much to pay for the internet?

Digital is now at the heart of almost every policy area and online access is integral to people’s lives. I thank the hon. Members for Somerton and Frome, for East Devon, for Totnes and for North Devon—and, of course, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton—for their considered contributions to the debate, which represent their constituents’ interests now and in future. We must ensure that, as we build back better and level up, there is no rural digital divide that holds back parts of our country and a significant number of our constituencies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Matt Warman)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) for securing this debate; I do not think that anyone has ever tried to duff up the Government in such a good-natured way. That spirit was shared by all hon. Members, for better or worse.

I have had these conversations with all hon. Members present and other MPs across Devon and Somerset, because broadband now matters more than any other utility. Over the last year or so, we have learned how important digital connectivity is. It is not that useful for me to talk about how extensive the superfast programme has been or how 96% of the country is covered, because if people do not have it, they do not have it. I understand why hon. Members want to go back with good answers to parents trying to educate their children and to farmers trying to deal with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—a whole host of people from every aspect of society. Digital is what we now rely on, and what we will continue to rely on for economic growth and for essential parts of everyday life.

I completely understand why the debacle of the 13% of houses that Connecting Devon and Somerset has not managed to get connected is important to all hon. Members present. As my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) generously pointed out, 87% of the programme has been delivered, but the fact remains that not far off 50,000 premises will be, at worst, nearly five years late. For what it is worth, I am sorry. It is important that, whether we blame Carillion for letting down Gigaclear, or Gigaclear for overpromising, the Government are sorry that we are in this position. That is an important starting point.

[Neil Parish]

I thank the Minister for taking my comments in such good part. The Government have put people in from the Department to look at Connecting Devon and Somerset and to sit on its board, but that needs to be strengthened. These mistakes cannot go on being made time and time again. My plea to him is to pick it up. I understand that the Government may not want to run the scheme themselves, but, for goodness’ sake, they cannot let Connecting Devon and Somerset behave in that way any longer.

[Matt Warman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. I want to try to look to the future. There are some bits of good news. I cannot remember his precise phrase—I am not sure if he literally asked me to grab Connecting Devon and Somerset by the throat—but we have certainly worked closely with it. He mentioned that we have made an appointment to the board. That is a signal of how closely and intensively we have worked with CDS to get these forthcoming procurements to a much better place.

I will talk about Devon and Somerset specifically, but it is also important to bear in mind that nationally, we are doing things to ensure that every barrier to a nationwide roll-out is removed; we are legislating for improved connectivity in blocks of flats and new builds; we are making it easier to dig up the roads and easier to repair the roads in a way that makes all of the nationwide roll-out go that bit faster. In Devon and Somerset, CDS is now in the final phase of that £38 million procurement that will deliver those final connections. Working with us in DCMS, what it has done—as is already public knowledge—is divide the remaining 50,000 premises into six lots to cover all parts of the region not currently addressed by the live Airband contract. The reason for taking that approach is to maximise competition, speed, and speed of roll-out wherever we possibly can.

We have teams in Building Digital UK that have covered commercial interest, state aid, value for money and delivery, all working intensively with CDS throughout the procurement process and supporting it at every stage. We could not have worked more closely, and that is in part because of the commitments that I made to Members when I came to the area to talk about CDS and we first made the decision that Gigaclear was not going to be in a position to revise its contract. We worked very closely with Gigaclear to try and get it to a point where we did not have to restart the process but, ultimately, I believe that restarting the process was the best way to secure the speed of connections that we need.

It is this close management that has ensured that the procurement is on the very shortest path to delivery that we could possibly have envisaged. To give my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton an idea, one procurement might routinely take nine months. Those six lots—those six procurements—will have been completed in around 10 months. He rightly highlighted the fact that we had aimed to get them done by the end of November. I think he would accept that quite a lot has happened this year that we were not expecting, but it is my expectation that they will be done by Christmas.

[Neil Parish]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Matt Warman]

If my hon. Friend will let me continue. I know everyone says it will be done by Christmas, but I mean this Christmas. That procurement process, as he can imagine, is very much ongoing now. I ask him gently not to tempt me to say anything that might derail that procurement process in the last three weeks, but that is where we are at.

[Neil Parish]

I understand the point that the Minister is making about the six contracts, but he should not forget it was Connecting Devon and Somerset that decided to split it up into six contracts. I am not necessarily against that, but I do not think it can be broadly said it has managed to deliver six contracts in 10 months. Previously, it was one contract; CDS decided to split it up, so it is taking more time. Yes, it will be at Christmas, all being well, but the contracts are going out to 2025. In this great new spirit of transparency, how much is going to be announced so that people can actually get connected well before 2025? We have had no transparency.

[Matt Warman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A crucial part of the future programme will be much greater communication with Members of Parliament, which is important up to a point, but also with the public. One of the most important things we can do is say to people, as he said, yes, the whole procurement will take several years, but there will be many shovels in the ground and many connections made well before the end of that period. We need to give people as much transparency as we possibly can, so that the entirely legitimate criticism that my hon. Friend made of the previous contract is not the case for the future contract.

It was right that CDS gave Gigaclear the opportunity to make things work, because it could speed things up, but we are where we are. It also important from a national perspective to say that Gigaclear has delivered in large swathes of the country: in Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Essex, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. There are many problems, given the situation we are in today, but part of this is that we cannot lay them all at the door of any one entity.

On the new procurement, while some may think it easier to award the contracts to a larger supplier, the fair and open process across six lots was intended to promote speed and competition. When my hon. Friend gets his Christmas present, I hope he will be able to greet that, and we will give him some of the transparency that we have talked about.

I thank CDS for working with DCMS as closely as it has. That is why we have got to the position of doing six procurements in ten months or thereabouts, taking the people of Devon and Somerset to a significantly better place. The overall delivery, in stages between 2021 and 2024, and 2024 and 2025, is the right approach but it needs to be as transparent as possible, and should go as fast as possible. It should be communicated as quickly as possible. I have made that point to DCMS and CDS because, once awarded, these new contracts will deliver the balance of the connectivity that should have been delivered by Gigaclear. It is worth remembering the UK Government target of 95% for superfast coverage. The latest figures in my hon. Friend’s constituency show that 84.35% of his constituents have superfast connectivity —slightly up from the figures that he has given. The bad news is that the other two constituencies that he mentioned have gone up slightly faster. Tiverton and Homerton now has the lowest connectivity in Devon and Somerset, and I know that he is not going to let up until that is at a significantly higher level. We will pick up the superfast connections with these remaining procurements, we will be more transparent and we will go as fast as we possibly can.

It is also important to talk about the forthcoming UK gigabit programme that my hon. Friend mentioned and be absolutely clear that this remains a £5 billion programme with a 100% target. The judgment of industry and the Government is that the initial phasing of the spending reflects the maximum that can be delivered in the period up to 2025, but we will continue to work with industry so that if we can go any faster at all, then we will. If we can exceed that 85%, then we will. It is not an 85% maximum—it is a 100% ambition and we will go as far and as fast as we can.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) mentioned vouchers. They will be a key part, but not the only part by any means, of that future procurement, because it is horses for courses, as we know. Some communities are able to work together, but in some areas that is simply not the right approach. A host of different approaches will inform how we spend that £5 billion because that is how we will make it go as fast as possible and how, with an eye on value for money, we will manage to make sure that we spend it as quickly as possible. I know what matters to hon. Members in the Chamber is getting those connections done as quickly as possible. In the period to 2025, we will focus that funding, wherever possible, on premises that do not have access to superfast broadband. That means that the focus will be disproportionally on constituencies such as Somerton and Frome, and Tiverton and Homerton, where an 80-something per cent. of people have it. I obviously cannot make promises about any individual connection, although I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) has recently been upgraded and I have hopes for my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome, but it is important that the Government are clear that we will focus the £5 billion gigabit programme on getting as many people connected as possible. We will focus on those who need it most, and we will continue to work with the industry to refine the programme and maximise coverage.

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[Neil Parish]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton) for his contribution to the debate. I like the way he managed to get roads and rail into a broadband debate—excellent. As my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp), went through all his villages, he stole one of mine. Feniton belongs to me—will he take his troops away? He made a very good point about how we need to get everybody connected. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) very much for his contribution. He was able to talk about gin distillers, farmers and fisherman all in the same breath—excellent. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) said that she has less connection than me, but the Minister told me that I have the worst in Devon, so that should definitely cheer me up.

At the end of the day, this is very much about connecting our constituents. I made the point that it does not matter who does it or how we do it, but they must be connected. Over the years, I have been concerned about Openreach and BT and their monopolies, but they are training 5,000 engineers a year. They are the big players out there, so we have to make sure we use them with the outside-in programme and the voucher scheme. There has been a history of antagonism between Connecting Devon and Somerset and Openreach, and I do not want that to hold back the delivery of broadband. This is not only about our businesses; we talked about children’s education and the health service—most doctors’ surgeries are now being done online because of the pandemic. There is lots of serious stuff that we need to sort out.

I do not apologise for being very forthright because I think it was necessary, but I accept what the Minister said. We really need to do better. The last comment that I will make, Ms Fovargue, is that if you think this is bad, if I have to come back a second time it may be even worse.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the rollout of broadband in Devon and Somerset.

Tourism: Covid-19

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this timely and important debate on tourism, and I thank my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), for securing it.

As we all know, tourism has been one of the sectors worst affected by covid-19, and I echo a lot of what my hon. Friend said. Naturally, the sector had to be closed down by the Government because of coronavirus, but it has been hugely economically affected. In the south-west, we have a large tourism sector that supports our region’s economy. Job losses will not be limited to hospitality. Significant losses will be felt in the food production and supply chains too, and of course, in rural areas, food, farming and tourism are intricately linked.

Despite an increase in staycations this summer and the help from Treasury, with the eat out to help out scheme, the furlough scheme and tax holidays, the tourism sector has still suffered huge losses because of covid-19. VisitBritain has collected data from across the country and estimates a minimum loss in revenue of some £68 billion for the tourism sector this year. According to a survey by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in June, 92% of tourism businesses say that their revenue has decreased by more than 50%, and 62% say that they will not be viable businesses within six months. That survey was three months ago, so time is of the essence if we are to ensure that our tourism and hospitality businesses survive the winter. Due to covid-19 and the lockdown, our hospitality and tourism sector missed out on half the holiday season. Even now, about one third of businesses in our region can only operate at 75% capacity, so viability remains an issue.

So what can we do? The first and most important thing is to maintain the VAT reduction for the tourism and hospitality sector through to Easter next year at the very least, because that will encourage visitors and keep businesses going. The reduction in VAT to 5% has reduced outgoings for our businesses throughout the summer, and I think it is best that the Government continue giving that support, to help businesses to plan. Ahead of the autumn Budget, I ask Ministers to lobby the Chancellor to keep VAT at 5%. I also ask the Government to consider extending the business rates holiday beyond April next year. We have a very able and good Tourism Minister, but it will take the tourism industry some years to recover from these losses.

BBC Regional Politics Coverage

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting this debate tonight. I think we have five hours for the debate, so I feel a speech coming on, but I promise you I will try not to go on for more than 4 and a half hours. I called for the debate because BBC regional programmes could well be under threat. MPs across the House will be alarmed at the direction of travel.

During covid-19, valued programmes such as “Inside Out” and the regional “Sunday Politics” shows have had to be taken off air, with no return date as such at the moment, although I just learnt today that ITV’s programmes are returning by September. BBC executives have said that the cuts are to do with safety, but a review of English programming is taking place, which is looking to save costs. Many regional journalists fear that they will be cut and never return to work on those vital programmes. If that were the case, that would be a great loss to all of us and our constituents.

The “Sunday Politics” show covers 11 regions of England, from the south-west to the north-east and Cumbria. Those shows are a crucial part of our local and national democracy, holding us all to account throughout the year. All our regions have their identities. This is essential. With the Government looking towards more regional representation, such a step by the BBC would be a retrograde one.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on bringing the debate to the Chamber. The number of right hon. and hon. Members present illustrates how deeply interested we are in it. Does he not agree that the boost that regional TV provides to communities, and the information it contains, is essential to addressing regional issues? While the BBC must cut its cloth to suit, perhaps it should look at renegotiating contracts with some of its higher paid broadcasting staff as well as its directors, which would easily pay for regional programming.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—I got the constituency right—makes a really good point. Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland have quite a lot of regional coverage, and rightly so. They could do with more, but so could the rest of the regions.

The merging of those 11 shows into one “Politics England” programme deprives local communities of properly funded regional and relevant politics.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is also from the fantastic south-west of England. He has touched on the BBC’s discussion about costs. Is he, as I am, struck by the fact that when we visit Broadcasting House we see lots of costs having been spread about, but when we visit our regional centres, be it BBC Gloucestershire or the BBC’s headquarters in Bristol, we see a very cost-effective organisation—far more cost-effective, dare I say it, than BBC HQ?

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[Neil Parish]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. We have BBC Gloucester, BBC Bristol, the BBC in Exeter and the BBC down in Plymouth. Even in our region, there is a massive difference between Devon and Cornwall, and Gloucester and Wiltshire. Having, at one time, as an MEP, represented the whole of the south-west, I can assure Members that it is a massive region. We could probably do with a regions cut up, rather than cutting the regions—I hope that makes sense.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman was starting to make an important point about the fact that the work done in the regions is very local. Does he agree that one great value of the work done on those regional political programmes is that it is done by local reporters who live and work in the communities themselves? Therefore, they can bring greater insight and analysis than would be the case if we had a single programme produced in Salford. No matter how good the reporters based in Salford may be, they do not have that same level of knowledge that local reporters have.

[Neil Parish]

I could not agree more with the hon. Lady. Whether we are talking about a steelworks in Scunthorpe, a farm in Devon or a fisherman in Cornwall, all these people have a particular link to those particular areas. That is why, especially with regional newspapers now getting less and less all the time—they are cutting their numbers, the number of journalists and offices—we need the BBC programmes to really focus on our local issues, so that not only we, as politicians, but constituents and business can also be represented in the media.

[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

As a former BBC editor and journalist, I am acutely aware of the fantastic opportunity the BBC has to super-serve our communities, and it only does so through programmes such as “Inside Out”, “Politics South West” and “Spotlight. My hon. Friend was mentioning local newspapers, whose demise we have seen in the past 10 years. In my area, I am lucky to have the Sidmouth Herald, the Exmouth Journal, the Express & Echo, and other great newspapers, and an independent local radio station in Radio Exe. But without the BBC providing real investigative journalism, journalism in our region will be eroded greatly. It is about time the axe fell somewhere else in the BBC.

[Neil Parish]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. He is my neighbour and it is great to have him here in this debate. I will forgive him for the fact that he has been part of the BBC; we will allow him that much. He raises an incredibly good point. Although we have got regional newspapers, all the time they are getting less. The Western Morning News is not a fraction of the size it was and the Western Daily Press is not what it was. When it comes to representing not only a given area, but a region, those newspapers are very weak compared with what they were.

[Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

In addition, BBC local radio feeds into local television. As much of our media is London-centric, it does not always pick up what is going on out and about in the country. We have high-quality journalism and it picks up stories from the counties that otherwise would not be picked up.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Without being too controversial and repeating the debate we had for three years over Brexit, it could be argued that the BBC and the media generally were very London-centric, and that is why the result was different from the one expected here in London. It is not only its representing views but its representing political views that is sometimes found wanting.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate, which is incredibly important. I am a great defender of the BBC and will happily defend the licence fee. I feel strongly that one of the things the BBC gives us that would be lost in its absence is regional accountability—the ability for people to find out what is happening in their local area, so that they can hold their politicians to account. The BBC risks losing that if it carries on in this way, so I support the hon. Gentleman’s argument. Does he think we should say to the BBC that if it wants to continue to justify the licence fee, it needs to protect the things that are precious about the BBC?

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. Most of us—especially as we represent an area over the years—have a very good rapport with our regional BBCs. Not only do they hold us to account, but we can feed stories and things that matter to our constituents into them. These regional programmes would therefore be a great loss. Let us imagine trying to achieve that in a London-centric system—it is bad enough feeding in what we want from our given areas with our political parties sometimes, and it would be even more difficult with the BBC. It would be a huge loss, and once it is lost, it will be very difficult to regain.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank my good friend for allowing me to intervene. As a London-centric Member of Parliament, may I point out to colleagues that we who live in London very much appreciate having a London programme that is not just London-centric—it is about London? We want to know what is going on in London and outer London too.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is right. We from the provinces and the sticks—not all Members present are, but I am—want those different types of flavour, and London wants its flavour as well. That is the whole argument for regionally-based programmes. London is a very large region with a lot of people, so it is right that it has not just the national news but London-based news.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise the importance of local, regional opportunities so that people can shine and then move on to bigger jobs elsewhere—for instance, in the London circle? Many people in my constituency and in Northern Ireland as a whole have had opportunities in the regional BBC and then progressed. Does he recognise that that progress is very important to bring us all together? This is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, all together.

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. Sometimes when we publish a Select Committee report, I do regional radio across the whole country, and I often have to ask which radio station someone is from because their accent is not from the region. It just shows that, through radio and television, people move around the whole country, and that is really good. My hon. Friend and neighbour, the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp), is a case in point: not only did he do well in the BBC, but he is now here in Parliament. That is probably a retrograde step—I did not say that, did I?

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman has touched on an important point. In many parts of the media—this also applies to ITN—the reporters stay for a long time, and they become fixtures for the public as, basically, the people who give them the truth. That is one reason why there is now far more cut-through from regional programmes to the public than anything they are seeing on the national news or, indeed, in national newspapers. A lot of that is about continuity, but it is also about relevance.

[Neil Parish]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman too; I am agreeing with everybody tonight—it is very dangerous. He raises a really good point. People recognise the local face on the television and have seen them for a long time, so they trust them. I expect that he and all hon. Members usually find it much easier dealing with our regional BBC colleagues; we have much more rapport with them than with the national journalists and BBC presenters. That, too, is very useful.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

As someone who is pro scrapping the licence fee, I put it on the record that while the licence fee and the BBC are in place, we have superb local and regional reporters—Sophie Calvert was on the phone harassing me to make sure I was here for this evening’s debate. The fear is that if we lose the BBC’s regional media, there will be an impact on ITV and it will also be likely to remove its regional media. Therefore, we will have no regional outlets at all.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. I do not know what ITV has done in his region, but in my region it has had to consolidate, so it does not have as many offices across the region. The south-west is more than 250 miles from top to bottom, so it is a massive region in length. It is therefore split up by the BBC. We would not want to lose that, and the trouble is that ITV has already done it.

The BBC bosses need to be aware that if they were to lose this regional base, regional coverage and regional support, they would weaken the BBC terribly. Therefore, it is not only in our interests and the interests of our constituents that it is maintained; I would argue that it is in the interests of the BBC.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I hope I will not break the sequence of the hon. Gentleman agreeing with all hon. Members who have intervened. Like me, he must have received a letter from the BBC this morning, proudly saying that it spent two thirds of its money in the regions and other nations. Of course, London is not a third of the economy. That shows that there have already been cuts to the regional broadcasting service, and we are suffering from them. We do not want any further cuts.

While I do not want to be a little Englander or a little UK-er, does the hon. Gentleman also agree with me that there is an imbalance in the obsession the BBC has with Donald Trump? It is more likely that we get reports from Washington DC than from Washington in the north-east.

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[Neil Parish]

Again, the hon. Gentleman—he is also my hon. Friend—makes a very good point. We are, by our very nature in this country, London-centric, for obvious reasons to do with Government and so on. Therefore, in order to try to dissipate that across the whole country, we need the regional strength of the BBC. The hon. Gentleman also makes a point about spending. The funding is not spent equally now. He made the point that London already gets more than its fair share.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

It would be remiss of me not to join colleagues in praising our local newspapers—a useful thing for any politician to do. As my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici) will know, we are served by the daily Grimsby Telegraph, which is magnificent. We are never, ever critical of it.

Over the years, I have regarded myself as a critical friend of the BBC, although in the last year or two that has been strained somewhat. Does my hon. Friend agree that the one thing we should expect from the national publicly funded broadcaster is regional news, and that regional political news is a vital part of that?

[Neil Parish]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I am sure he is now guaranteed the front page of his local newspaper, at the very least. Again, he raises the point about keeping these regional identities. We still have many regional accents. As far as I am concerned, speaking with a Somerset accent, I would like to keep some of those accents. There are lots of accents heard in this Chamber, and that is absolutely excellent. They link in very much to what we want to see in our regions as well. We all have different types of business interests in our regions, and they must be focused on.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I do not want to upset the consensus too much, but far be it from a Scottish nationalist to say that we are far too London-centric and the money should be going elsewhere. While it is good that we are having this debate about regional programming, it would be remiss of me not to introduce the issue of funding for the likes of BBC Alba, which is the Gaelic language service. There is an absolutely massive imbalance between funding for the Welsh language services, for example, and funding for BBC Alba. I hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying and congratulate him on securing this debate, but we have to look at that again as well. If we are talking about preserving the Gaelic language in Scotland—many of us are trying to do our bit on that—we have to get the funding for it.

[Neil Parish]

I am not an expert on the Gaelic language, but I can understand the hon. Gentleman wanting to make sure that there is enough coverage. I think it is about the number of people who speak a language at a given time, and there is an argument as to how much coverage there is, but he has certainly put a good point on the record.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I can see how much my hon. Friend is enjoying this four-hour Adjournment debate. There are presenters on the BBC’s “Newsnight” who earn more than the entire BBC South politics team put together, but the show they put out in our patch achieves a bigger audience than Andy Marr. May I disagree somewhat with his thoughts on regional coverage? Yes, there might be regional parts of local broadcasting, but in the digital age we should be able to achieve more local television broadcasting, because, with the greatest respect to what goes on in East Sussex, it is not of huge interest to my constituents in Winchester and Hampshire. We should really be seeing investment in localised broadcasting by the BBC, not disinvestment.

[Neil Parish]

Yes, my hon. Friend makes a really good point. As I said, the south-west region is split up by the BBC, so we could get even more local. He is saying quite clearly that in the digital age we can break it down much more, almost by county or even town. That is a very interesting point.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. I apologise for arriving slightly late, but I was at the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, where we were talking about devolution and regional accountability and democracy, which is absolutely relevant to this debate.

On the point about the digital age and local reporting, “Look East” in the eastern region goes all the way out to the coastal regions, and someone might say, “What’s that got to do with Luton?” I would say, look east and west, my friend, because we can take it right down to the issues that impact Luton but do not impact the coastal regions of Norfolk. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the ability to focus on the local is absolutely vital to the future of our scrutiny of politicians?

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Lady is echoing so much of what has been said in this debate. The message we need to send to the BBC is that we not only want the regional BBC to be saved—we want it to be broadened and made even more local in this digital age.

We have all got much more used—certainly I have got much more used—to using the computer for the Zoom, the Microsoft Teams and all these things, and being able to link in wherever. We sometimes almost spend too much time on creating the best-quality television—not the quality of the programme but the quality of the production and the science behind it—rather than making it as broad as possible. If there is anything we can learn from this epidemic, it is that we can probably widen things by doing more Zoom stuff and getting people in from all over the place—we can do that much quicker and more easily and get a better message. Quite a lot could be learned. I hope the BBC is listening to this debate and that by the time we finish, it will be open to many more ideas than it was before we started.

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend and congratulate him on securing this Adjournment debate. Does he agree that programmes such as “Inside Out” are incredibly cost-effective? I understand that it costs about £6 million a year for all 11 regions that it covers, which, to me, indicates great value for money. The BBC’s charter says that the BBC should reflect, represent and serve the diverse communities of all the United Kingdom’s nations and regions, and that it should offer a range and depth of analysis and content that is not widely available from other UK news providers. This is a point that so many hon. Members have made here tonight. If regional news and current affairs are not an essential part of any offering from a public service broadcaster, then what is? Surely, when looking at making savings, cutting investment in these programmes should be the last thing on the list rather than the first.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Just before the hon. Gentleman answers, may I say that the interventions are getting very long? They are almost mini speeches, dare I say it? Hon. Members may be wishing to catch my eye later, and they can indicate to me if so, but I would just point Members to the fact that interventions should be fairly short.

[Neil Parish]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think that most Members are probably making interventions rather than speeches. I promise you that I do not intend to speak for four hours, despite what I said at the start of my speech.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) makes a very good point about “Inside Out” and the value that it offers for £6 million. She also emphasises the fact that we are, all the time, looking for a much more local basis for our politics today, which means that this would be going in completely the wrong direction. Whatever the party politics of this country at the moment, we have shown over the past few years that politics is not all about London, but about the whole of the country. People’s views are significantly different across the country and that is what we do not always see.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

As somebody who launched and ran the first local television station—run from Grimsby—I know that a very high-quality local television station can be run, producing news and political programming, for around half a million pounds a year. That is a challenge that I would give to the BBC. What is vitally important is that our local radio and television is impartial, which is not something that our online services and papers have to do. It is very important to get good quality impartial news to our constituents.

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend makes a really good point about impartiality. Of course, that is very much what the BBC is set up to do—to be impartial. Sometimes some of us, from all parts of the House, wonder about that impartiality, but it is quite clearly there, and it is what the BBC represents. We therefore want that impartiality in both the regional and the local BBC. I have to say that, in our own BBC in the south-west, the people I deal with are pretty good and I must pay tribute to them. I will not name them here tonight, because that would be embarrassing to them. None the less, we are well represented and we have good people across the regions. It would be such a shame to lose them, it really would.

[Jonathan Gullis]

It is amazing to see the cross-party support and work on this subject, which is sadly not something that is often shown on our national television. I note that, in the west midlands, we have had more than 100 Labour Members of Parliament and councillors sign a letter, with Conservative backing, to the BBC’s “The Politics Show”. Will my hon. Friend be willing to lead the charge by going on “the Zoom”, as he says, and setting up a call with the director-general, so that we can all have our say?

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. I will make that offer to the director-general of the BBC; it will interesting to see whether it happens. I agree with the Secretary of State’s position, and I have confidence in him being able to put our case very firmly to the BBC. As my hon. Friend says, this is a cross-party matter, because we are all politicians; we are all in politics and we believe in representing our constituencies and getting our message across. We need the BBC and the media to deliver our message, irrespective of what party we belong to. It is at these moments that we can come together. Perhaps the public ought to see us on occasions such as this, when we are agreeing with each other. They watch Prime Minister’s questions and ask, “Why are you always shouting at each other?” but in fact we do not; sometimes—occasionally—we agree.

[Bob Stewart]

One of the reasons why we—colleagues—like local radio and television is that it tends to give us a better crack of the whip than going national does, and we are allowed to express ourselves a bit better. We like it, and that is why we support it.

[Neil Parish]

I think what my hon. Friend means is that on BBC national news, the moment you open your mouth you are interrupted, whereas on our regional programmes we often have a chance to make a point before we are stopped. I have probably put a few words into my hon. Friend’s mouth, but I think he is absolutely right. I should probably make a little progress now, or I will be on my feet for four hours.

This weekend, “Politics England” has the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) on the show to discuss freight travel and Brexit. Leeds and Essex are a long way apart. England is clearly too large to be a region that can be covered in one show. There are 533 English MPs in the House of Commons, and political issues differ from Yorkshire to Cornwall, from Essex to the west midlands. Brexit, as many interpreted it, was a statement against over-centralisation and a demand for more control over decision making. As more power is devolved away from Whitehall through greater local authority powers and new regional Mayors, the BBC should prioritise more investment in regional programmes, not less. It is vital that local politicians are scrutinised fairly, impartially and specifically on the matters that affect those regions.

Like the “Sunday Politics” show, “Inside Out” broadcasts across 11 English regions; it was due to return in September, but the autumn series has now been cancelled. As I said earlier, ITV is bringing its programmes back in September, and I think the BBC should do the same. Shall we send the message loud and clear from this House tonight that that is what we want the BBC to do? “Inside Out” has consistently won awards for its investigations and in-depth coverage, despite being made on a relatively small budget. It is the BBC’s most popular current affairs programme, outperforming “Panorama” and “Newsnight”, as hon. Members have said.

On 26 March, before “Inside Out” was taken off air, it had 3.29 million viewers across England. Premier League football, which was broadcast live for the first time on the BBC this weekend, had 3.9 million viewers. Surely the Government and the BBC should be funding local journalism, rather than intervening in the already lucrative market for live sport? The regional “Sunday Politics” shows and “Inside Out” are examples of the best of British broadcasting, and to lose or reduce them is to undermine the values on which the BBC is built.

[Lilian Greenwood]

The hon. Gentleman is making a really powerful case on behalf of “Inside Out”. Does he agree that it is one of the programmes that have made a real difference? Iain Wright, the former Member for Hartlepool and a former Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, said that “Inside Out” was the key first step in exposing the exploitation at the Sports Direct factory in Shirebrook. It had a direct impact, not just on the people there, but on our work here. That would not have happened if local journalists had not been listening to local people and taken up that story.

[Neil Parish]

I think it brought the situation of workers at Sports Direct to the forefront, and hopefully much has been done to improve the situation since that was revealed. She is right to put that on the record.

The regional “Sunday Politics” shows and “Inside Out” are examples of the best of British broadcasting, and to lose or reduce them would undermine the values on which the BBC is built. At its best, properly funded local journalism engages the public, shines a spotlight on local issues and can change the country for the better. Recently, “Inside Out South West” broadcast a piece about the fate of amputees following surgery. A Mr Hopper, a vascular surgeon at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, developed sepsis and unfortunately had to have both legs amputated. Having performed thousands of amputations himself as a surgeon, he found as a patient that there was a gap in the rehabilitation care for amputees in the NHS. His story was broadcast in depth by “Inside Out” and it helped to spark a debate that led to changes in the allocation of resources by Public Health England. So again, real change can come from the programme. “Inside Out” was able to do the story justice and effect real change: it just shows how valuable properly funded local journalism can be.

Local news delivers local stories, a training ground for journalists and, importantly, a way for the BBC to demonstrate its commitment to and knowledge of the local area. A decade ago, ITV slashed its regional coverage, and MPs received assurances at the time that the BBC would not do likewise, and we want that honoured. With local newspapers struggling, the market cannot provide the depth of regional coverage the BBC is currently providing to our constituents.

As the BBC reviews its regional programmes in England, I sincerely hope that the views of MPs in this debate—we have had many great contributions tonight and I thank all Members for them, because it sends a really loud and clear message to the BBC—will be taken into account. The debate has shown how passionately we care about our communities, local journalism and local democracy. I hope that the Minister will join us today in asking the BBC to continue providing high-quality regional programmes. They are vital, valued and cherished in the south-west, as they are across all our English regions.

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[Mr Whittingdale]

My hon. Friend is right in that it has only been since the new charter was put in place that Ofcom has had the role as an external scrutineer of the BBC, and it is the role of Ofcom to ensure that the BBC is meeting its purposes. He quoted in his own remarks one of those purposes from the charter and I want to come back to that, because he is absolutely right that providing regional coverage is one of the purposes that the BBC is required to fulfil. Having made it clear in my remarks that I do not intend to instruct the BBC, because I think it is completely wrong for the Government to attempt to do so, nevertheless, I entirely understand the concern that has been expressed by hon. Gentlemen from across the House about the BBC’s decision to cancel the autumn series of “Inside Out”.

[Neil Parish]

What tonight’s debate has shown is that, across the House, there is united support for keeping regional programmes and for making them even more local than they are now. We need to get that message across loud and clear. I understand that it not the Government’s perspective to dictate to the BBC, but it is also right that we send from this House a clear message that the BBC should maintain regional programmes and enhance them.