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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment because I do think that this is a particularly important issue. I know the Minister addressed it briefly at the Committee stage so I went back and looked again at what has actually happened in a number of rural areas. People living in rural areas are not just another group. Because of the Government’s quite correct drive to get more services online, it has become essential for those people to be able to access those online services, some of which time out if things take too long because they have only a dial-up mechanism. The same applies to online banking. With banks and other outlets such as post offices closing, online access becomes ever more important. The Minister may say that other agencies—for example, the regional development agencies—should have been responsible. Indeed, in many cases they did take forward investment effectively. However, that has been patchy. It has not been equal across the regions. Economic and social development are being very adversely affected and this is the least the Government can do to rectify the situation. A long time ago—in fact when the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was Defra Minister in this House—there was much talk of rural-proofing. This would be one of the main things the Government could do to rural-proof. Perhaps the Government still do a check on their Bills to make sure that they are rural-proofed. I should be interested to know whether this one has been. If it has, the Government should immediately accept the amendment.