To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what recent assessment he has made of the likely economic effect on rural small businesses of not having access to broadband in the next two years. (258444)

This Department has made no recent assessment on the likely economic effect on rural small businesses of not being able to access broadband in the next two years. However, I recognise the importance of broadband access in rural areas and will be developing plans for a universal service commitment to be effective by 2012 as part of the Digital Britain report. We will set out our plans for the level of service which we believe should be universal and anticipate that this consideration will include options up to 2Mbps.