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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of properties in Morley and Outwood that are capable of receiving services that deliver internet speeds of over 1 gigabit per second.

The government is committed to delivering lightning-fast, reliable broadband to everyone in the country. Our plan - to stimulate investment, bust barriers and drive competition - is working. This is the biggest build in UK history with 60% of all households to have access to gigabit-capable speeds by the end of the year - a huge leap forward from 2019, when it was 9%. By 2025 the government is targeting a minimum of 85% gigabit-capable coverage.

In March this year we launched the first phase of the government’s £5 billion Project Gigabit to ensure that hard to reach communities are not left out of the revolution in connectivity. In August, we announced more details about our procurement pipeline and specifically, for the 2.2 million hard to reach premises in England in Phases 1 and 2 of the delivery plan. Further detail is at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/project-gigabit-delivery-plan-summer-update.

West Yorkshire is in Phase 2 of the delivery plan. Formal procurement is planned to start in the region in November 2022. Based on current data, around 133,000 uncommercial premises will be targeted across the West Yorkshire (and parts of North Yorkshire) procurement lot.

As these large subsidised contracts progress, Project Gigabit also continues to help communities with up to £210m available in Project Gigabit vouchers to help with costs of installing gigabit to people’s doorsteps.