Tories’ promise on broadband may see 60,000 homes miss out

MINISTERS have been accused of breaching a manifesto pledge to give every household in Britain a legal right to a minimum broadband speed after it emerged that 60,000 homes could miss out.

The Government last year announced a Universal Service Obligation (USO) that would give people the right to request access to broadband with minimum speeds of 10 Mbps.

The Conservatives’ general election manifesto said: “Our Universal Service Obligation will ensure that by 2020 every home and business in Britain has access to high speed broadband.”

But the Government has said the policy may not apply to any property where the cost of connecting is more than £3,400 and that householders may have to pay the excess themselves.

Ministers took the decision despite council leaders warning that entire villages in rural areas could miss out. According to government documents, the Local Government Association “argued that since the majority of these premises would be in rural areas, entire communities may not get connected.”

Grant Shapps, the former Tory party chairman and chairman of the British Infrastructure Group of MPS, said: “The clue should be in the name. The Universal Service Obligation means you should be able to get it everywhere.

“Residents in rural communities will be left in the internet slow lane causing misery and disappointment for tens of thousands of families.

“The internet is not a nice-to-have extra service – the Government needs to make sure it reaches each and every household in Britain today in the same way they would expect to have plumbing and water.”

Last year, Ofcom, the regulator, said that 1.1 million premises – equivalent to four per cent – could not access broadband speeds of at least 10 Mbps, sufficient to satisfy the requirements of an average family.

However, a spokesman for the department of trade and industry said: “It is completely wrong to suggest that we are not delivering what we have committed to – everyone in the UK will have a legal right to highspeed broadband and nobody is going to miss out.

“The Universal Service Obligation means that remote rural communities can apply as a group to ensure they are connected without being subject to costs.”