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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of recent trends in the level of uptake of superfast broadband at or above 24mbps where such coverage exists; and what steps his Department is taking to increase such uptake.

Take-up rates from projects in the Phase 1 Superfast Broadband Programme now average over 40%, significantly higher than the level expected by suppliers at the start of the programme. In BT’s quarterly results to the end of December 2017, they announced that connections to fibre-enabled broadband now total 9.2 million, up by 600,000 within the quarter. As a result of the take-up levels that are now being achieved, BT have estimated that the total gainshare funding to be returned to the projects within the Superfast Broadband Programme will now be £527m. The Department is currently reviewing these data and other evidence to consider options for increasing superfast broadband uptake.