Labour MP Slams Lack Of Welsh Broadband Funds

Ian Lucas, the Welsh MP who is also the Labour party’s shadow business minster, has hit out at what he calls the lack of funding for superfast broadband for Wales.

The MP for Wrexham used his website to attack the coalition government for not specifically allocating any money to help homes and businesses in Wales get super-fast broadband.

Lucas said that communications minister Ed Vaizey had admitted in a Parliamentary response that Wales had not been allotted funds in its £530 million scheme to rollout at least a 2Mbps broadband connection nationwide.

Wales Missing Out?

“No money will be specifically allocated for improving broadband services in Wales by the Conservative-led Government,” wrote Lucas. “Wales has already missed out by not being included in the Government’s pilot projects set up to test out the high-speed broadband network in October – although when these were announced, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt told MPs Wales would benefit as one of the pilot projects was in the neighbouring county of Herefordshire.”

“Now Ministers have confirmed that Wales is not guaranteed any of the money at all. In his answer, Mr Vaizey states: “The approach being taken to the support of broadband rollout is to support specific projects rather than to make allocations to nations or regions.”

“The licence fee is paid by taxpayers in Wales in exactly the same way as it is across the UK, yet the Government has not guaranteed any money for Wales” complained Lucas.

“This would be less of a concern if there had not already been controversy over the way the Government handled the first round of bids for pilot projects,” he added. “When Ministers effectively say Wales has to wait for the scraps from a project across the border, it does not inspire confidence. It is vital that Wales exerts as much pressure on the Government as possible to make sure it gets its fair share.”

Disingenuous Outburst?

The griping from Lucas does seem to be that of a local MP championing his region and seeking to bring pressure to bear for direct Government investment.

However to be fair to the government, it has already said that it will allocate money based on specific projects and not nations or regions, which applies to England and Scotland just as much as it does to Wales.

But it is true that Wales, like other parts of the UK, does indeed suffer from its share of so called broadband ‘not-spots’, especially in remote regions where the cost of rolling out fibre would be hugely expensive.

Virgin Media for example has been trialling broadband delivery over telegraph poles in the Welsh village of Crumlin, Caerphilly, and in the Berkshire village of Woolhampton.

In June, BT announced a deal with the Welsh Assembly to provide super-fast broadband to the villages of Beulah and Ystrad Meurig in Ceredigion and Cil-y-Cwm and Llanfynydd in Carmarthenshire.