Yesterday I asked the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport about what support he was giving to rural areas to improve their digital connectivity.
About 8 million adults in the UK would struggle to manage in a cashless society, the majority of those people living in rural areas. This is because rural communities are amongst the slowest to move to digital, often due to limited access to broadband.
We need to do more to bring rural areas up to the same standard as urban areas in terms of digital connectivity. Already over 95 per cent of the UK has access to superfast broadband, and I’m pleased to hear the Secretary of State commit to rolling out full fibre broadband for those rural areas which may otherwise miss out.