---

Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I, too, am interested in the word "efficient" because I suspect it is being confused with the concept of commercial viability. Whenever I talk about investment in rural broadband, which would help hugely in terms of reducing traffic on the roads, the green agenda, working from home, teleworking and flexible working hours—over the past few days and particularly today, it would have been useful if certain key people could have been working straight from home—I am always told that it is not commercially viable. I note that the latest list, published yesterday, of over 100 exchanges that BT is upgrading, shows that they are all fairly major and not in rural and more distant areas. There is no intention at the moment, I think, of putting any investment into those. That is not because of efficiency, and that is why the word is so odd, but because of the commercial viability of doing so. That is where I hope we will look at trying to co-ordinate activities between BT, the large incumbents and Virgin, and perhaps alter the rating system so that some of the dark fibre that is running alongside railway tracks could be lit commercially—again, because of the rating system, it cannot be—and integrate it all so that it is not about efficiency or commercial viability, but about putting in place a proper working infrastructure. That is why I think the word "efficient" is an odd one to use in this provision, although I suspect that, as ever with this clause, the intentions are right.