9. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on the likely effects on competitiveness of the change in the time scale for the delivery of a universal broadband service. (26738)

I have not discussed this with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, but I have discussed it with the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport and we both agree that the new target of having the best superfast broadband in Europe by 2015 is the best way to proceed on broadband. I have also praised my right hon. Friend for having secured substantial funding for broadband roll-out.

This matter is very important for competitiveness, especially at a time when we need many new jobs to be created by companies in rural areas as well as in urban areas. Before the election, the Minister’s right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport described the plan to secure 2 megabits per second broadband access universally by 2012 as woefully unambitious, but since the election he has simply deferred the deadline by three years to 2015. What became of his ambition?

Our ambition doubled, tripled and became superfast. We learned from broadband providers that they were already in a position to implement superfast broadband, so why should we push them down the slow channel when we could push them down the fast channel? That is why the pilots announced by the Secretary of State will implement superfast broadband for rural areas. I know that the right hon. Gentleman will welcome that given his experience in the previous Government.

Even with impressive progress, some communities such as Atworth in my constituency still face being left out, but nearly all the schools in my constituency have access to broadband speeds of at least 9 megabits per second. Will the Minister consider opening the various grids for learning so that people can pay to piggyback on broadband access from their schools out of hours?

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. We will be publishing a broadband strategy document at the beginning of the month which will address this specific issue. There are technical difficulties with achieving that, but if they can be overcome, it should certainly be done.