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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what representations he has received from (a) churches and (b) faith groups on the barriers to broadband access for places of worship that do not have a postcode.

We understand the importance for broadband access in places of worship to help improve connectivity for local communities, as well as practical benefits for such premises, including streaming services, security, and accepting contactless donations or administration.

The Government has been in discussion with representatives from the Church of England, in particular, regarding the issue of broadband access where places of worship do not have postcodes, or are otherwise missing from telecom provider databases. In some cases this leads to issues in identifying and providing service to such locations.

Over 31,000 premises are listed in relevant databases accessible to the Government as being used as places of worship. Of these, approximately 86% of premises used for religious purposes in Great Britain can access Superfast broadband speeds or better on fixed networks, compared to the UK average of 95%. Approximately 4% of premises used for religious purposes in Great Britain cannot access ‘decent broadband’ speeds of 10 Megabit/s on Fixed networks, compared to the UK average of 2%, largely due to their rurality. However, 4G data services are also widely available, and this reduces the number of such listed places of worship with no potential service to less than 0.2% of the total.

We are working with relevant stakeholders, including telecom operators and Ofcom, to ascertain the extent of this problem, and how many religious premises are still facing barriers. Part of this is about ensuring data used by operators is up to date and consistent with the data available to the Government. But it is also about identifying appropriate solutions, including ensuring all broadband technology solutions that are available to places of worship are considered.