Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to improve mobile connectivity in (a) rural and (b) semi-rural areas in (i) Fylde constituency and (ii) Lancashire.

We base our assessment of coverage in rural and urban areas on Ofcom's rurality definition. Ofcom reports that 5G (standalone and non-standalone) is available outside 92% of rural premises in the Fylde constituency from at least one operator. Our ambition is for all populated areas to have higher quality standalone 5G by 2030, we continue to work with the mobile industry to achieve this.

I have raised my concerns about the accuracy of their coverage reporting with Ofcom and I welcome the improvements they have made to their online coverage checker which will go live in the second half of June.

We are working with the Mobile Network Operators to improve poor mobile signal in rural areas. The Shared Rural Network is delivering 4G coverage to places where there is either limited or no 4G coverage at all.