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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, when he expects there to be universal access to superfast fibreoptic broadband in Easington constituency.

In the Easington constituency we estimate that around 90% will benefit from superfast broadband coverage through commercial roll out. According to current forecasts a further 7% will have access under the publicly funded Superfast Broadband Programme by the end of September 2018. As announced by the Prime Minister on 7 November, the Government intends to implement a new broadband Universal Service Obligation in this Parliament. A four-week consultation on the Government’s proposed approach to taking this work forwards was published on 23 March.