Superfast Broadband

Richard Arkless Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)]

I should like to thank the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) for securing this debate on what is perhaps the most important economic issue for rural constituencies. My inbox, like that of my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Stuart Blair Donaldson), seems to be bursting almost daily with messages from vast swathes of people in rural areas who cannot connect to the internet at anything better than dial-up speeds.

All broadband policy, under successive UK Governments, has focused on covering a certain percentage of population rather than a percentage of the geographical land mass. That is fine if you live in London, Glasgow or Manchester, because that is where the numbers are, but it is completely useless if you live in my constituency. My main message over the medium to long term is that this House needs to change that focus. We need to change tack. We need to focus on geographical roll-out instead of having this fixation with speed in populated areas.

My constituency is rural, running 100 miles from east to west and with 200 miles of coastline. Our biggest town is 80 miles from our second largest town. In between, thousands, if not tens of thousands, of my constituents live more than 2 miles from a superfast broadband exchange cabinet. That is the key to rural digital connectivity, as was alluded to by the hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey). People in my constituency are in line to receive superfast broadband only if they live within 2 miles of a fibre-optic exchange, and people often need to be within 1 mile of that exchange to get workable speeds. This will leave thousands of my constituents with no prospect of any kind of workable speeds. It is rural communities, with low-wage economies, dispersed public services and many infrastructure challenges, that need the help the most.

My constituency has more small businesses per head of population than anywhere else in Scotland, which is an incredible statistic given the digital disadvantages we suffer. Rural businesses are the driving force in my constituency. They are our biggest employers and it is essential that they are given the tools they need to grow. Let us consider our farmers, for example. Ours is a farming region, and our farmers, already squeezed by milk prices and other pressures, are being asked increasingly to rely on an almost non-existent connection. They have to deal with common agricultural policy applications, VAT and pay-as-you-earn returns, and applications for livestock passports and for animal registrations. All those jobs should take minutes with superfast broadband, but in reality they take hours and days with little better than dial-up speeds. That drains not only valuable commercial time, but huge amounts of what I would describe as rural gold-dust enthusiasm. They face all that before they attempt to diversify, which, amazingly, they are doing fantastically well despite being lumbered with a digital ball and chain.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you can never fully appreciate how encroaching on modern life digital exclusion can be unless you experience it for yourself. For that reason, I suggest that the “not-spot summit” be held in my constituency. People could come to Dumfries and Galloway to meet the young people who cannot get connected to the internet and to talk to our older people. They will be happy to explain how isolating it can be not to be able to see the photographs of the new baby or the grandchild’s first day back at school. People could come to meet our business leaders and ask them how they can expand their customer base or even stay still with these non-existent speeds. When it comes to booking a hotel room, people could ask our hoteliers how this affects them.

In another generation this place felt it proper to enact a universal obligation for telephone lines. This generation says it is now time to do the same for superfast broadband.