Full-fibre and gigabit-capable broadband to every home and business across the UK by 2025 was a key Conservative manifesto pledge in the 2019 general election.
But the Tories softened their rhetoric on the stance over the course of 2020, saying they would go “as far as we possibly can by 2025” with Boris Johnson eventually committing £5bn to help ensure that at least 85 per cent of UK premises can access a gigabit-capable connection by the end of 2025.
The chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee Julian Knight has now said the government has failed to explain how it will even meet this target.
In the committee’s report, Broadband and the road to 5G, MPs warned that ministers risked failing to meet their latest, less ambitious target while also warning that the 5G roll-out risked repeating the legacy of mobile ‘not-spots’.
MPs on the committee said that DCMS Department itself had failed to adequately respond to a number of their...