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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate he has made of the proportion of households that will have high speed broadband by the scheduled end of this Parliament.

This question was answered on 9th April 2019

The Government is introducing a broadband Universal Service Obligation (USO) to meet our manifesto commitment that by 2020 everyone across the UK will have access to high speed broadband.

The USO will be a minimum of 10 Megabits per second, from a designated provider, up to a reasonable cost threshold. We will keep the speed and quality parameters under review to make sure that it keeps pace with consumers' evolving needs.

The proportion of households that have high speed broadband will also depend on whether occupiers of those premises choose to take advantage of the service when it is available to them. For example, Ofcom figures from its 2018 Connected Nations report, shows that whilst 98% of UK premises have access to high speed broadband, only 65% of premises actually choose to take a service that delivers it.