My Lords, I am grateful for that and I apologise to the noble Baroness for not realising that. However, that gives me greater justification for doing what I am doing, which is to answer immediately what would have been the clause stand part debate. I think that we will all benefit in the end.
The more rural and remote areas, including protected areas, are some of the places where an infrastructure upgrade for broadband is needed the most. Without action, it is likely that these rural and quite remote areas will be left even further behind. I think that noble Lords have acknowledged that people who live in these areas want broadband and that there is a strong rationale for it. There are 700,000 households and businesses in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, and most of these will not be served by the market alone. In England, 25% of premises in
these areas currently get less than 2 megabytes per second. We estimate that, in total, potentially 4 million more people and nearly 2 million households could have access to superfast broadband as a result of Clause 8.
Without the rollout of broadband, businesses in these areas would suffer, including those in the tourism service sector, which increasingly find that visitors demand greater connectivity when they come and stay at guest houses, bed and breakfast establishments and hotels, and these businesses are frustrated by the lack of broadband to offer their customers. National parks authorities, along with many other rural areas in England, have cited insufficient broadband provision as a particular barrier to growth.
We are trying to tackle this disparity in the provision of superfast broadband and it is a key priority for the Government. We are spending nearly £700 million to stimulate the market to improve broadband connectivity and we are taking action to ensure that the barriers to deployment are removed. These actions are specifically designed to close the rural-urban broadband divide and promote economic growth. The broadband support package, which the Government announced on 7 September, is key to delivering that.
The consultation paper, Proposed Changes to Siting Requirements for Broadband Cabinets and Overhead Lines to Facilitate the Deployment of Superfast Broadband Networks—succinct as that is—published yesterday by the Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, to which we have been talking, brings forward proposal for two changes to the Electronic Communications Code (Conditions and Restrictions) Regulations 2003.
Perhaps I can take a few moments to set out what the consultation covers. The consultation’s first proposal is that we will remove of the requirement to underground telecommunications apparatus. This is the only restriction that stops communication providers deploying overhead infrastructure. It does not say that they cannot provide underground structures. They can. If they want to share a gully or a trench with some other provider, they can do it in a way that is satisfactory to them. There is nothing to stop that. All this does is to say that it is not a requirement. If you cannot do it for some reason—