Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many premises in Scotland had superfast and fibre broadband service made available to them as a result of the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband scheme.

The broadband project, supported by UK taxpayer funding and delivered by Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband, had provided Superfast broadband coverage to approximately 520,000 premises by the end of September 2017.

Over 7% of Scottish premises still have no access to Superfast broadband. The Scottish Government has been funded a further £20 Million in 2014 to connect more Scottish households, but has failed even to open procurement, and is not expecting to have contracts agreed until December 2018. This will be over three years behind Wales, Northern Ireland and most regions of England. The Government will implement the Local Full Fibre Networks programme directly with Local Bodies to ensure more efficient delivery.