Digital Highlands

Last month, the Government published Digital Britain, a comprehensive strategy for the development of digital communications and services across the UK to meet the needs of individuals, business and government in the information age.

Communities in the Highlands in particular will benefit from the Universal Service Commitment, which will ensure we all have access to high quality broadband by 2012. Digital Britain goes further, with ambitious plans to deliver Next Generation Broadband to all of our communities. This is not just about giving us all ever faster access to uTube. Small businesses can thrive in the rural economy when they have high-quality communication links whilst we can all benefit from access to services and information across such digital networks.

Labour's priorities between now and the General Election are threefold: cleaning up politics, taking Britain out of recession and into recovery and modernising our public services and infrastructure.

I welcome Lord Carter's report as a major contribution to third of these goals.