Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many and what proportion of (a) homes and (b) premises in each parliamentary constituency in Cumbria have access to superfast broadband.
Answered by Margot James
The Department does not distinguish between homes and businesses. According to Thinkbroadband currently 92.6% of premises in Cumbria have access to superfast speeds (http://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/cumbria,E10000006). This is up from 0.6% coverage in 2010. The local project ‘Connecting Cumbria’ holds data at a constituency level.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much money his Department has spent on bottled water in each year since 2010.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
The information requested is not held centrally, and to obtain it would incur a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment her Department has made of progress towards the implementation of the Universal Service Obligation for broadband by 2020.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The Government took a power In the Digital Economy Act 2017 enabling the introduction of a new broadband Universal Service Obligation (USO), which would give people the right to request a connection, at a minimum speed, from a designated provider, up to a reasonable cost threshold. On 30 July, a consultation on the proposed design of the broadband USO was published, and the Government also announced that BT had volunteered a proposal to deliver universal broadband. The BT proposal, if accepted, would be legally binding, and deliver a minimum speed of at least 10Mbps, with many premises receiving substantially faster speeds. BT's offer has the potential to deliver better connectivity to people more quickly than under a regulatory USO so we are considering it carefully. A decision will be taken on the best route to deliver universal broadband, once we have considered the responses to the regulatory USO consultation which closed on 9 October, and worked through BT's offer in detail with them.
Once a specification for a broadband USO is set in secondary legislation, it would fall to Ofcom to implement the USO, by designating one or more universal service providers and imposing regulatory conditions on them. Ofcom would also be responsible for enforcement of these conditions.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether British Telecoms is liable to pay penalties in the event that the Universal Service Obligation for broadband is not fully implemented by 2020.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The Government took a power In the Digital Economy Act 2017 enabling the introduction of a new broadband Universal Service Obligation (USO), which would give people the right to request a connection, at a minimum speed, from a designated provider, up to a reasonable cost threshold. On 30 July, a consultation on the proposed design of the broadband USO was published, and the Government also announced that BT had volunteered a proposal to deliver universal broadband. The BT proposal, if accepted, would be legally binding, and deliver a minimum speed of at least 10Mbps, with many premises receiving substantially faster speeds. BT's offer has the potential to deliver better connectivity to people more quickly than under a regulatory USO so we are considering it carefully. A decision will be taken on the best route to deliver universal broadband, once we have considered the responses to the regulatory USO consultation which closed on 9 October, and worked through BT's offer in detail with them.
Once a specification for a broadband USO is set in secondary legislation, it would fall to Ofcom to implement the USO, by designating one or more universal service providers and imposing regulatory conditions on them. Ofcom would also be responsible for enforcement of these conditions.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how much (a) total and (b) per capita funding is provided by Sport England in each (i) region and (ii) county.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Sport England National Lottery and Exchequer grant investment in grassroots sport, broken down by constituency, is publicly available on Sport England’s website: www.sportengland.org/funding/investments-weve-made.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many (a) official and (b) official sensitive documents have been recorded as lost by her Department since 8 May 2015.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The information requested is not held centrally. All losses are assessed and responded to individually and on a case by case basis with all possible mitigating actions being taken and in full compliance of our legal and other responsibilities.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department has undertaken any research on the effect of the UK leaving the EU on consumer phone bills and mobile roaming charges.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The same rules and laws will apply on the day after Brexit as they did before, including for roaming.