Maria Eagle – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2016-05-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate he has made of the savings to his Department’s budget arising from the Government’s decision not to automatically roll-out broadband to all households and businesses.

Mr Edward Vaizey

The Government’s plans to implement a broadband Universal Service Obligation will have no impact on the Department’s budget for the roll out of superfast broadband. The contracts we have put in place with Openreach mean that the more homes and businesses that sign up for superfast broadband, the more money Openreach has to return to local authorities to extend the roll out even further. So far, Openreach has confirmed more than £200 million of savings that can be reinvested, over and above the £1.7bn of public funding already allocated, and we expect more funding to be confirmed in due course. We will be reinvesting that funding to extend superfast broadband to as many additional rural homes and businesses as possible.