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4 Mar 2003 : Column 722—continued
Mr. Paice: I am sure that the House is very grateful for an exposition on why the Liberal Democrats do not believe in the market economy. I agreed with little of what the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) said, but I want to address my remarks to new clause 2, which was admirably moved by my hon. Friend the Member
for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo). Although it is common to say so in this place—indeed, it can be construed as a trite statement—I cannot for the life of me see why the Government should not accept the new clause. It is a perfectly reasonable provision, which would simply require Ofcom to ensure the operation of competition. The Government assure us that they believe in competition, but not in too much regulation; however, the reality seems to belie that. Of course, they also believe in broadband, so it seems perfectly reasonable to expect that they will accept the new clause.My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) illustrated more ably than I can the problems of accessing broadband in rural areas. He said that perhaps 50 per cent. of his constituents could access broadband, but I suspect that in my area the figure is more like 15 per cent., if that.
I have spent quite a lot of time over the past few months trying to ascertain how people throughout my constituency can access broadband. The problems are not unique to us, however, but are commonplace throughout rural areas. Extremely remote rural areas are affected, but so are areas such as mine, which abuts Cambridge city.
The Cambridge science park is in the parish of Milton in my constituency, not in the city of Cambridge. It is connected to the Cambridge exchange and is able to access broadband. Absurdly, however, the rest of Milton parish is connected to a different exchange and is not broadband enabled. Milton is only one of the villages—I use the word advisedly, as we are talking about settlements of several thousand people—so affected. Those villages are full of small businesses, many of them at the leading edge of the knowledge revolution and the knowledge-based economy, yet they are not able to access broadband, and many have no prospect of being able to.
Like my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire, I shall not be too critical of BT. It has made some progress in the past year, and has reduced the threshold targets in some exchanges in my constituency, which I welcome. It has introduced thresholds in a couple of exchanges that did not previously have them, and that is a step in the right direction. It is also considering the idea of aggregating different exchanges.
One problem is that many consumers do not know what their exchange is. Many people confuse their exchanges with their STD codes. They do not understand why some people who share their dialling code are able to access broadband when they cannot.
As a result of the inability to access broadband via BT and the fact that there is no prospect of that being possible, businesses and individuals with specialist knowledge are trying to devise their own ways to access the facility, using one of the various systems. In some cases, the villages in my area are partly cabled. The work was done by the Cambridge Cable Co., now part of ntl. That makes the threshold problem harder. If part of a village can access broadband via cable, it reduces the scope for other providers to meet the threshold laid down by BT. However, cable facilities are usually confined tightly to the centre of the villages, and it is highly unlikely that they could be extended.
The upshot is that, in the village of Bottisham—not more than half a dozen miles from Cambridge—a group of people have put together a radio-based system. They lease a single copper line from Cambridge, and their system, which uses radio antennae, now operates through six parishes. These very advanced individuals have achieved this without recourse to a grant from the East of England Development Agency, mainly because in this matter they were ahead of the agency, which had not managed to get a grip. The agency now advocates all sorts of grants, but the people about whom I am talking had already got the system up and running and so received no grant money.
The group did get a small grant from the Countryside Agency, which was very helpful, but parishes now approach the group and ask to join the local network, and no grant money is available to facilitate that. Neither the EEDA nor the Countryside Agency will assist them, because the system already exists. The parish of Little Wilbraham in my constituency wants to join in the system that I have described, but the costs will now be huge, and that seems incredibly perverse.
The Bottisham entrepreneurs put the system together more than a year ago. I arranged for them to meet the then e-envoy, to discuss the problems involved. I hoped that they could pass their experiences on to the Government as an aid to policy. The envoy arranged an appointment at which he could meet my constituents and me, but the Minister, whom I am pleased to see in his place, wrote to me and said that he had taken over the envoy's responsibilities. He was not able to keep the appointment, which was a shame: my constituents were blazing a trail but were unable to present their case to the Minister.
3.15 pm
John Robertson : The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point, but he is describing what happens when there is competition. People can go against each other, and those in business must compete. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should consider the solution that he has outlined? Deutsche Telecom has not had the competition problems that we in this country have encountered. It has done quite well in making broadband access available.
Mr. Paice: I am afraid that I know nothing about the Deutsche Telecom system, so I cannot comment. However, I was not suggesting anything that is anti-competition. I was trying to draw the House's attention to the holes in the Government's policy for promoting broadband. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire said when introducing the new clause, the development agencies are acting differently in different regions. My right hon. Friend said that the agency in Cornwall is getting on the back of BT, while other agencies are riding different horses. In the east of England, some people and businesses in my constituency are ahead, as the Bottisham example shows.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire referred to the problem as it affects schools, other public facilities, GPs' surgeries, and so on. The point cannot be over-emphasised. The Prime Minister made his undertaking—although some of us have
become sceptical about such things—but if he is to fulfil the undertaking, broadband will have to be extended to the very large number of villages that have a primary school. However, there is no present prospect that broadband access will reach those villages. Like my right hon. Friend, I am fascinated to know how the Prime Minister envisages that that will happen.
Mr. Mole: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the east of England broadband project E2B? For some time it has been placing contracts, with the result that schools in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire have broadband access.
Mr. Paice: I am very much aware of the project. To the best of my knowledge it has not delivered anything to my constituency, although I stand to be corrected on that. My point is that if the primary school can access broadband, the technology needs to be in the village, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire said. Logic implies, therefore, that at least some other members of the community could piggyback on that system. However, that is not yet happening.
I certainly do not want to get into arguments about technology; I am the first to accept that my knowledge is extremely limited. I am primarily concerned about many residents of villages in my constituency who are at the leading edge of the knowledge revolution. Currently, they have to travel to Cambridge, London or elsewhere to work, yet many of them could, and indeed would, work from home at least part of the time. If they could do so, it would comply with many of the objectives not only of the Government but of the House: it would reduce travel, congestion and so on. However, unless those people have access to broadband, they will have to continue to travel to areas where it is provided.
The new clause would enable the Government, through Ofcom, to roll out the provision of broadband far more effectively.
Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath): I agree with my hon. Friend; villages in my constituency, too, could piggy-back and take advantage of the provision of broadband in schools if it was undertaken correctly.
Recent surveys have shown that children—especially younger children—still prefer using books to using the internet. Although we want to ensure that broadband is provided, does my hon. Friend agree that we must also ensure that schools do not completely abandon traditional learning methods?
Mr. Paice: My hon. Friend tempts me to go down a wholly improper path, so I shall resist. However, I am sure that he will understand that I have some sympathy with his point. I am delighted that the sale of books has not been as seriously affected by the development of the internet as many people prophesied.
I have taken enough of the House's time. I wholly support the new clause. Ofcom should have a specific responsibility to accelerate the roll-out of broadband so that a large geographic area and a significant proportion of the population, such as my constituents, can access
the latest technology and continue to play their part—as we do in Cambridgeshire—in driving forward the economy of our country.
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