James Naish

I thank the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) for securing this important debate. One of the very first pieces of casework I received after the general election was from a constituent living in a village called Tollerton, who wanted access to full-fibre for domestic and commercial purposes. He told me that he had been contacting Openreach on and off for two years, trying to find out when the upgrade would start, and that the proposed connection date had moved four times. He consequently described the roll-out of full-fibre as “shockingly slow”. You will not be surprised, Mr Dowd, to hear that he lived in one of the 6 million hard-to-reach properties classified as area 3 by Ofcom. I encourage the Minister to think about how to best accelerate work to connect hard-to-reach properties as a priority to ensure that we meet our nationwide 2030 target. Thankfully, I have been able to confirm that Openreach has a customised installation plan for Tollerton that will sit outside the core commercial build programme. My constituent described that confirmation as “amazing news”, and work should start early in the new year. None the less, the volume of communication I receive about full-fibre tells me that residents are frustrated about perceived delays. I would therefore be interested to hear more from the Minister about steps being taken to remove barriers to roll-out, including flexible permitting and sharing infrastructure where possible. I acknowledge the work of the previous Government in starting the roll-out of full-fibre, which is of national importance. However, as our manifesto clearly says, “the rollout of gigabit broadband has been slow.” I therefore welcome the new Government’s commitment to “make a renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030.” Full-fibre uptake to date in my constituency of Rushcliffe is very high, at 55%, which is above the national average. With a growing tech industry, significant house building and many people continuing to work from home, I believe demand will only grow further. But for parts of rural Britain, that is likely to require early investment in wireless and satellite provision for places where it may prove prohibitively expensive to provide a full-fibre connection. I would therefore welcome hearing more from my hon. Friend the Minister about his planned approaches for this.