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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to theit revised target to reach a "minimum of 85 per cent gigabit broadband coverage by 2025", as set out in the National Infrastructure Strategy, published in November 2020, whether they still intend to use an "outside-in approach" to support full-fibre rollout.

We are still committed to the ‘Outside In’ approach. This is why we are not waiting until commercial delivery is complete before starting to build in the hardest to reach areas under the £5 billion UK Gigabit Programme and why we are also looking to prioritise premises without an existing superfast broadband connection, wherever possible.

As we committed to do in the Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review in 2018, and reconfirmed in the National Infrastructure Strategy in 2020, we are ensuring that delivery to the hardest to reach parts of the UK takes place in parallel with commercial build.

We have already been doing this through our existing Superfast, Local Full Fibre Networks and Rural Gigabit Connectivity programmes, which have delivered gigabit-capable broadband to over half a million homes and businesses since 2018.