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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate his Department has made of the number of homes in (a) Cumbria and (b) Copeland constituency which do not have access to superfast broadband.

Current superfast broadband coverage is over 80% of UK premises and the Government remains committed to providing 95% coverage to homes and businesses by December 2017.

The commercially-funded delivery of superfast broadband in Cumbria is expected to cover over 111,000 premises. Phase 1 of the Connecting Cumbria broadband project aims to provide superfast coverage to a further 116,000 homes and businesses in Cumbria. As of 31 March 2015, this project had provided superfast coverage to approximately 59,000 premises. Assuming completion of the commercial programme, this would leave approximately 85,000 premises within Cumbria which do not yet have access to superfast broadband.

Comparable data is not available at constituency level. However, by the end of Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the Connecting Cumbria project, coverage in Copeland constituency is expected to reach 92% of premises.