Asked by: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, when he expects the BBC's Charter renewal negotiations to begin.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
My Right Hon. Friend the Secretary of State is considering a range of options for reviewing the BBC's Royal Charter and will make an announcement in due course.
Asked by: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what progress has been made by the taskforce reporting to his Department on tackling nuisance telephone calls.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
The taskforce published its report on consent and lead generation issues within the marketing industry on 8 December 2014, making fifteen recommendations for business, industry, regulators and Government. We are carefully considering its six recommendations for Government and will respond to these shortly.Asked by: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps can be taken to provide broadband services to residential properties in major cities where (a) commercial internet providers have deemed the street cabinets serving that commercially unviable and (b) the local authority is restricted in its ability to use public funds to build broadband networks in contravention of state aid regulations.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
The Government is investing up to £150m in the SuperConnected Cities Programme to support UK cities to develop the digital infrastructure capability required to remain internationally competitive.
In addition there has also been a substantial increase in planned commercial infrastructure investment in urban areas including, BT committing an additional £50million to their commercial roll-out; Virgin Media investing to improve its superfast footprint by 100,000 premises and a range of other providers making investments in cities such as York, Coventry and Peterborough. These investments will benefit both businesses and domestic households. There is also the ongoing roll-out of 4G which will make a significant impact on connectivity in urban locations.
The Government is also working to drive down costs of network delivery and has amended the planning regulations and Electronic Communications code supported the European Directive on measures to reduce broadband deployment costs and has a universal basic broadband commitment to ensure minimum service levels.
When Government reviews outstanding coverage issues in urban locations after the closure of the SME voucher initiative in March 2015 we will be better placed to identify the most challenging areas and to consider the most appropriate and effective method of intervention at that time.
Asked by: Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what representations he has received from local authorities regarding the barriers to removing telephone boxes; and if he will take steps to remove such barriers.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has not received any representations from local authorities regarding barriers to removing telephone boxes.
Under its Universal Service obligations, BT must provide public call boxes which sufficiently meet the needs of consumers. Before BT can remove the last public call box from a site (defined as any area within a walking distance of 400 metres from that public call box), it must follow the process set out in the Directions and Guidance published by Ofcom. The relevant local authority must be consulted and, if it can show why a particular uneconomic payphone should be retained, it can exercise the ‘local veto'. This will result in the payphone being retained.
Local councils can also ask BT to remove a particular box. Assuming BT agrees to the request, if there are other boxes within 400 metres, the box can be removed without consultation; if not, BT would need to follow the process above.
These procedures ensure a process for the removal of uneconomic phone boxes, balanced with appropriate safeguards against the removal of phone boxes where they still serve a community need.