Digital Connectivity

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 3 May 2018.

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Photo of Peter Chapman Peter Chapman Conservative

I open by declaring a registrable interest as a partner in a farming business.

From many of the speeches today, it is clear that the Government, although we support its aims in this area, has been too slow to deliver fast and reliable broadband to Scotland. I will highlight the Ofcom figures for my region, as many of my colleagues have done for their regions. The figures are not encouraging: 26,000 Aberdeenshire properties still have broadband speeds below 30Mbps; 15,500 properties do not have 10Mbps; and 4,776 have an abysmal 2Mbps or less. That makes Aberdeenshire one of the least-connected local authorities in the UK; its lack of coverage is considerably worse than the Scotland-wide figure of 9 per cent.