Broadband in the Highlands

I grabbed the opportunity to meet Stephen Timms MP on Monday, when he was in Scotland on a "research" visit in his role as Minister for Digital Britain. I caught up with him in Alloa and put the case for Broadband in the Highlands.

The Digital Economy Bill that Stephen is currently piloting through Westminster make a commitment to guarantee access to 2MB Broadband to every home in the UK. That won't do much for rural areas like the Highlands, however. Its still dependent on BT wires, so you will get a connection but if you live 15 miles up a strath the performance will be woeful. What we need is Next Generation Access - NGA - based on high speed optical fibre and wireless technology and offering speeds up to 100MB with assured service quality.

NGA could transform the rural economy.

The problem of course is that the telcos - BT, Virgin, Cable & Wireless etc - won't put the infrastructure into sparsely populated areas as there is not enough commercial return. Across the UK and northern Europe however, there are community-driven programmes springing up - based on mutual and social enterprise business models - which are finding ways to deliver NGA when government steps in with some seed funding to get the "backhaul" infrastructure installed

I think we really need to look at these models in the Highlands.

The Digital Economy Bill is proposing a 50p per month levy - just £6 per year - on every BT landline to go towards creating a £1bn fund to invest in just such infrastructure. What we need to do is make sure the Highlands get a fair share of that investment and that its directed to delivery models that make sense here. That will need communities, Highland Council, Holyrood and Westminster to work together. No mean feat!

Peter Peackock MSP has been doing great work on this, and I will support him from Westminster in due course.

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Labour IS working

‘ Jobcentres are doing well and the department extracted money from the Treasury for Labour market support during the crisis. Unlike in previous recessions people have not been shifted off the claimant count into other benefits; there has been a net flow into jobseekers allowance from lone parent and incapacity benefits.

Inflows into unemployment have been lower than in the last recession and people are leaving the register faster; 70% leave unemployment within six months, compared with 63% in the 1990s and 60% in the 1980s. Employers, having once written of the official employment service, now express more than 90% satisfaction with it.’

Not as you might have thought from a Labour Party press release but taken straight from an article by the Sunday Times Economics editor on Sunday 24th January, a paper which is not exactly a ‘friend’ of the Labour Government.

It’s always difficult to comment on unemployment numbers – to say they ‘aren’t as bad as feared’ is little comfort to those who have lots their jobs, and the many young people in particular who are finding it very difficult to get a start. But it is important to look at the position objectively – and to acknowledge that the Government’s intervention has had a beneficial effect.

We can see the impact in the Highlands where unemployment is still below the national average at under 3%, compared to over 9% under the Tories at the height of the last recession in 1992.

Keeping unemployment down, and getting the employment rate back up is not just of huge importance to the individuals and families affected, but is also crucial to reducing the Government’s borrowing. The same Sunday Times article quoted above also said:
‘ official calculations suggest lower than expected unemployment could cut public spending by a cumulative £17billion over the next five years.’

Tory emphasis on immediate deficit reduction, with a particular emphasis on the public sector would lead to higher unemployment and may not achieve the deficit reduction claimed.

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