Western Isles MSP speaks in broadband debate

Alasdair Allan MSP

Western Isles SNP MSP, Alasdair Allan, today spoke in a parliamentary debate on broadband provision and improving the availability of broadband, particularly to the Western Isles.

In his speech Alasdair Allan told Hebrides news Today:

“Good broadband networks are essential to the economic and social wellbeing of Scotland’s rural areas, and in particular its island communities. For Scotland’s remote communities, not to have broadband is to cut themselves off from a whole range of opportunities.

“It prevents people working from home, it impedes business start up and survival, it prevents schools from accessing the benefits of large areas of the curriculum as it is delivered elsewhere.

These are not trivial problems in depopulating communities.

“Without rehearsing all the history of this, there is I believe no doubt that the UK Government made a serious error when it left just over 20 areas – all of them in the Western Isles – without exchanges capable of delivering broadband.

“If Lord Carter’s Digital Britain review manages to right that wrong it will find a welcome in the Highlands and islands.  If it seeks, however to impose a levy to achieve a universal broadband obligation on the very households who do not enjoy such an entitlement, it will struggle to be taken to people’s hearts in quite the glowing terms envisaged.”

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