Question
In any emergency, communication is key. In answering the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) earlier, the Minister talked about restoring mobile services if they had been damaged in a storm, for example. But that rather misses the point for the villages that my right hon. Friend mentioned and the villages in my constituency, such as Cuddington and Bryants Bottom, that have no mobile signal right now. Through this resilience work, what more can the right hon. Gentleman do, with other Government Departments, to speed up delivery of the shared rural network and get those rural notspots the connectivity they need and deserve?
Answer
The hon. Member makes an important point. Communication is key. I know he will understand that I was responding to a specific point about where a particularly capability had been lost and how it could be restored as quickly as possible, but I take his point about areas that do not have connectivity in the first place. I am sure that that is a conversation we want to have across Government, to look at what more we can do, working with colleagues in DCMS, but let me take that away and I will come back to him with some further thoughts.12% vibes
Verdict: RED (20/100) DEFERRED
The reply acknowledges the concern about areas with no mobile or internet connectivity and says the minister will look at what more can be done with DCMS colleagues. It names no specific action, mechanism or timescale, and it promises to come back with 'further thoughts', so the substantive answer is deferred. The first part of the reply also addressed a different point, restoring lost capability, before turning to the no-signal question. The asker would most likely need to submit a follow-up to get a concrete answer.
How we got there
| Question item | Coverage | Specificity | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| What more the Minister can do, working with other Government departments, to speed up delivery of the Shared Rural Network so that rural areas with no mobile signal, such as Cuddington and Bryants Bottom, get the connectivity they need. | Deferred | Hedged | The reply accepts the point about areas with no connectivity and says it will look at what more can be done with DCMS colleagues, but it names no mechanism or action and defers the substantive answer with 'I will come back to him with some further thoughts'. Statement 3 concedes the minister first answered a different point (restoring lost capability), so the initial response was off-target, though the reply does engage with the no-signal question in statement 4. |