Geoffrey Cox – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Geoffrey Cox on 2016-09-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Government is taking to encourage BT to increase its commercial investments.

Matt Hancock

Nine out of ten homes and businesses now have access to superfast broadband, but our goal is to make sure the UK builds the right infrastructure to maintain our position as a world-leading digital nation. BT has a big part to play in this.

The government supports Ofcom in the changes that it wants to see in relation to Openreach. A more independent Openreach is needed to benefit consumers and boost investment in the UK’s digital infrastructure.

We are encouraging BT to invest in high-quality broadband infrastructure and have brokered a deal between Openreach and the Home Builders Federation that will see fibre-based broadband offered to all new developments either for free or as part of a co-funded initiative. Additionally, Virgin and GTC have recently signed new deals in this area.

We are creating a favourable regulatory environment to incentivise commercial investment for BT and all Communications Providers. For example: we will reform the Electronic Communications Code, to support faster and more efficient infrastructure rollout and to encourage investment and growth in the UK digital industry; and we are making permanent a relaxation of the rules for deploying fixed broadband infrastructure originally introduced in 2013.