Charlotte Cane

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing this important debate. I agree with much of what she said in her speech, and much of what other hon. Members have said. My hon. Friend’s constituency shares many similarities with mine: they are a comparable size, have a comparable population, contain much farmland and have scattering of medium-sized settlements. In my case, those settlements include the city of Ely, which is home to over 20,000 residents. According to Ofcom’s coverage map, the entire city is covered by all mobile network operators, with at least “good outdoor” coverage. Given such confidence, I invite Ofcom inspectors to Ely, where I will challenge them to catch even a single bar of mobile signal in the city centre. They will be sorely disappointed. Instead, the Government could look at data gathered by a number of different independent sources that reports remarkably poor mobile service in areas of my constituency that Ofcom claims are covered. Alternatively, the Government could simply listen to local people. They would hear from local business owners in Ely market square who cannot get a signal for their card machines; residents, such as my constituent Alan, who has tried to install a smart energy meter in his home on four occasions, each unsuccessful because of insufficient mobile signal, which is not only irritating but means he cannot get the cheapest fuel options that are available only to people who have working smart meters; or the new restaurant in the middle of the city centre that cannot take orders because it cannot get internet or mobile signal. Rather fittingly in a debate about mobile connectivity, the major failure in the Government’s approach thus far appears to be a total lack of communication and connection with the lived experiences of citizens on the ground. The Government claim that mobile coverage has reached 96% of the country, but thousands of my constituents in Ely and East Cambridgeshire—and, I am willing to bet, in almost every other rural constituency—would beg to differ. Given the way that the Government are assessing coverage, serious doubts are raised over the sincerity of their connectivity goals overall, including the roll-out of the shared rural network. Although that is due to be complete by this time next year, the Government seem to have minimal capacity to direct investment and new infrastructure to reach their goals, relying instead, as we have heard, on the mobile network operators, who put commercial interests above the interests of our constituents.