I think that was an intervention to ask permission for another intervention, which I am sure the Minister will be happy to accept. In our area we have the opposite: most of my constituency is a fair few feet below sea level. We are as flat as a pancake—a bit lumpy in some places, but generally quite flat—yet the signal is ridiculous. The Isle of Axholme is a prime example. It is largely as flat as a pancake, but the signal in places such as Fockerby and Epworth is absolutely terrible.
In the year or so since I last secured a debate on this subject, there has been some progress, which I want to acknowledge. The £5 billion investment deal that the Government signed with the mobile operators has made some improvements. It will guarantee voice and text coverage from each operator across 90% of the geographic area of the UK by 2017, although we still need more action on notspots, of which there are two in my constituency. Full coverage from all four mobile operators should increase from about 69% to 85% by 2017.
There have, therefore, been some improvements, but although 99% of premises can receive a 2G signal, Ofcom has found that the proportion of the entire UK landmass that is able to receive a signal from all four operators has remained at 55% since last year. Nevertheless, I welcome the Government’s announcement in the comprehensive spending review of £550 million to make the 700 MHz spectrum available over the next five years.
The most recent update on coverage was in Ofcom’s “Connected Nations 2015” report, which found that almost 46% of the country now has 4G coverage from
all major operators. It would be unfair of me to say that some of the improvements have not affected my constituency, because they have, but we still have significant issues with progress on this matter. I welcome some of the other moves. Voice over wi-fi is a really important way of helping people at home, although in many parts of the country the roll-out of superfast broadband has been disappointing. I exempt from that the north Lincolnshire part of my constituency, where the roll-out out has been incredible, but the roll-out in the East Riding of Yorkshire part can best be described as hopeless—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) will agree. It is all right having voice over wi-fi, but people often do not have access to that at home.