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Broadband (North of England)

I am sorry to tell the hon. Gentleman that the Government have put a large amount of money into the super-connected cities programme—it ran into a rural challenge in Europe—instead of putting money into and prioritising rural areas such as his constituency and mine. I wish that what he is saying was true, but it is not. Will the Minister tell us in his winding-up speech what the spend in the super-connected cities programme is? It had a mammoth underspend a year ago and we have not had an update from him on the precise profile of what is going on with that programme, which I think is an extremely important point.

Twice the Government have been criticised by the Public Accounts Committee for their roll-out of broadband. All hon. Members and all Government Departments should take seriously criticisms that come from that Committee. Last July, it pointed out that the broadband delivery programme will be 22 months late and that the programme, because of the way in which the contracts have been set up and the geographical areas have been designed, was not promoting market competition.

As the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) pointed out, British Telecom now has even greater dominance in this area than it had previously. It is expected to win all 44 contracts being put out to tender by local authorities. The Public Accounts

Committee also cast doubt on the transparency of the costs in BT’s bids and said that because there was a lack of transparency in the process and in the bids, it was impossible to tell whether we have achieved value for money. That is before we move on to the questions that have been raised not only by the hon. Gentleman, but by other hon. Members in the House about the behaviour in specific small locations.

This is not a success story; it is a story of promise and disappointment. The Minister admits that contracts are now being signed with late delivery dates. He has moved the goalposts on several occasions.