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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that Exeter has access to high-speed broadband.

Exeter has a strong competitive superfast broadband market from suppliers including BT/Openreach, Virgin Media, and Torbay Telecoms. Third party verification from Think Broadband puts superfast coverage above 97.5%.

Phase 1 of the Devon and Somerset superfast project (Connecting Devon and Somerset) has now covered over 300,000 premises with superfast broadband and further procurements are in train to extend coverage further.

The Universal Service Obligation, which we have enabling powers for in the Digital Economy Bill, will help ensure that everyone can access high speed broadband.