Broadband

(asked on 3rd February 2020) - View Source

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

To ask the Minister of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of the roll-out of gigabit-capable broadband by 2025; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Matt Warman Portrait
Matt Warman
This question was answered on 11th February 2020

Government has pledged £5 billion to support the rollout of gigabit-capable networks to the hardest to reach parts of the country. In addition, the Government’s £200m Rural Gigabit Connectivity programme is already supporting rollout of gigabit broadband in rural areas. This funding will be targeted at the premises where we do not expect operators to commercially invest, to ensure that no part of the country will be left behind.

In addition to this, £49m of funding for the Wave 3 Local Full Fibre Networks project has been successfully bid for since the last budget. This is on top of the previously announced £53m million of funding.

We expect that the rest of the UK will get gigabit capable networks through private investment. Therefore, rather than fund rollout in commercially viable areas with public money, we are focusing on breaking down barriers to deployment in order to enable faster rollout by the private sector operators. For example, we have recently introduced the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill into Parliament, which will make it easier for network builders to access blocks of flats where there is an absent or unresponsive landlord.

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