Digital Exclusion
Tim Farron Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris, and I give a huge thanks to the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) for securing this debate. I simply want to talk about rural connectivity. Digital exclusion for many of us in rural communities is simply about not being connected at all. Let me focus on Project Gigabit in particular, which is a good thing and the Government are to be commended on its roll-out. However, it is important that we do not think that one size fits all. Project Gigabit is very good, but there will hundreds of communities in Cumbria, even those within scope, that will not be connected as a result of it. There is no sign so far of the Government having a plan to connect those houses and communities, which are often isolated properties such as hill farms.
I am also very concerned about properties, businesses and communities in what is referred to as deferred scope when it comes to gigabit. I will mention a bunch of places: parts of Sedbergh, Kaber, Murton, Long Marton, Winton, Warcop, Ormside, Hilton, Hartley and Bleatarn. If the Government restored the broadband voucher scheme to those few parishes, we would be able to connect every single property within them with gigabit upload and download speed with our work through B4RN—Broadband for the Rural North—which would be able to take up the slack. I encourage the Minister to intervene in those specific communities to restore the voucher scheme so that those places will not be excluded.
My final word is about Digital Voice, which others have mentioned. During Storm Arwen, we saw places and communities such as Coniston, Torver, Flookburgh, Allithwaite, Backbarrow and Haverthwaite completely disconnected from every kind of communication simply because if the copper wire has been lost, when the electricity goes down, so does the phone. It seems wrong that Digital Voice has been rolled out without thinking about the isolation and lack of communication available as a fallback for communities such as ours in the lakes.