Helen Morgan

The right hon. Gentleman, my constituency neighbour, makes an extremely good point. The quality of the data is critical. One of the recommendations of the APPG is exactly that: to ensure that data is reliable and that Ofcom can challenge it where they know that it is inadequate. There is a huge difference in which areas are considered to be without “good” voice capability. Ofcom disputes Streetwave’s findings because of the methodology that it used, but the experience of those of us who live in rural areas suggests that it is Ofcom that is wrong. It is no good telling people that their service is good when their own phone is telling them that it not. Unless Ofcom establishes clear requirements to define the quality of service that networks must deliver, how can we ensure real regulatory accountability? Put simply, Ofcom and the Government must do more. I welcome the Government’s recognition of the need to improve coverage reporting in the statement of strategic priorities that it published yesterday, but at the moment we do not have the information that we need. I do not know about you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I think people in rural areas are sick to death of being told to believe that they have never had it so good, discounting their own daily experience. Last year, Ofcom increased the accuracy of its mapping data by zoning in on smaller areas. However, if network operators do not have accurate data about the areas that need improvement —and we think that they do not—then investment is unlikely to be put into the areas of greatest need. The shared rural network initiative, which has delivered, I have to say, no noticeable improvement in my area, involved the then four mobile network operators spending half a billion of their money to end partial notspots, based on the Ofcom data that has now been superseded and that we all suspect is a bit on the dodgy side. EE—the same company as BT and Openreach—already had an extensive network of mobile masts, and it met its obligations in advance of the June 2024 deadline for the shared rural network, while other operators experienced delays. Some of the causes of delays are difficult to overcome. It is difficult to get planning permission for a new mast; there is a lack of planning resource in local authorities; there are logistical challenges to building masts in remote and rural areas; and there are issues over access to land. Another part of the problem was that EE did not share access to its masts, because it failed to reach agreement with the other mobile network operators. That was a commercial negotiation into which I do not have insight, but the reality is that better coverage could have been achieved simply through effective equipment sharing. My Bill, the Access to Telecommunications Networks Bill, sought to fix the problem by requiring telecommunications companies to share their equipment; penalising them if they did not; and, in areas where they did not, requiring people to be enabled to roam between networks. We are all familiar with that issue if we have travelled in Europe.