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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent steps she has taken to progress her policy to provide all households with broadband speeds which satisfy the Universal Service Obligation.

In March 2021, we launched our £5 billion Project Gigabit to deliver lightning-fast, reliable broadband across the UK. Project Gigabit’s objective is to level up the UK by giving hard-to-reach areas access to gigabit-capable internet speeds and, coupled with commercial gigabit delivery, ensuring almost all of the UK has access to gigabit-capable internet as soon as possible.

We have recently signed our first local Project Gigabit contracts in North Dorset and Teesdale, prioritising delivery to rural, hard-to-reach premises and to those with the lowest broadband speeds, and we will be awarding further contracts over the coming months.

Furthermore, up to £210 million is available for Gigabit Broadband Vouchers to support rural communities with the cost of installing new gigabit-capable connections.

Separately to Project Gigabit, the broadband Universal Service Obligation (USO) provides the legal right to request a decent broadband connection, helping to ensure full participation in both society and the economy.

Since its launch in 2020, the number of premises eligible for the broadband USO has fallen from 189,000 to 66,000 as of May 2022. Ofcom estimates that a further 17,000 premises are currently unable to receive a decent broadband connection, but are expected to receive an upgrade by a publicly funded rollout scheme within the next 12 months.