Seema Malhotra – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Seema Malhotra on 2015-12-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate he has made of the proportion of UK businesses that do not have access to broadband with speeds above 24Mbps.

Mr Edward Vaizey

According to Ofcom’s Connected Nations Report 2015, published on 1 December 2015, superfast broadband coverageis now available to 68% of small and medium businesses (SMEs) – up from 56% last year– a very substantial increase.

In addition, the £40 million government-funded Broadband Connection Voucher Schemehas benefitted well over 50,000 SMEs,who employ up to 1 million people across the UK; and we are on track to hit 95% superfast broadband coverage across the UK by 2017. In addition, the PM recently announced the ambition to give people the legal right to request a connection to broadband with speeds of 10 Mbps, no matter where in the country they live.