Meeting of the Parliament 03 November 2016
I do not think that a single member of the Scottish Parliament who represents a rural region or constituency did not campaign during the election on a ticket that included sorting out the lack of broadband and mobile connectivity in their area. What we said and what we published in our election literature will no doubt be quoted back to us and waved in our faces at the next election, if we fail.
I therefore welcome the Government’s commitment to deliver superfast broadband by 2021. I believe, however, that it is an ambitious promise that will be a real challenge to deliver. We are happy to work with the Government to achieve it, but should it not deliver or do enough to deliver, we will become the Government’s fiercest critics.
Scotland as a whole has the lowest proportion of premises with access to fibre broadband in the UK, and the Highlands and Islands have the lowest proportion in all of Scotland, with only 79 per cent of premises having access to fibre broadband. In the Highlands, 26 per cent of properties have broadband speeds of less than 10Mbps. Those premises will prove to be the most difficult to deliver superfast broadband to, although those fragile rural areas most need broadband.