Enterprise and Culture Committee, 27 Jan 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 27, 2004

Official Report 273KB pdf

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Broadband Access Inquiry

The fourth item on the agenda is consideration of a paper on our proposed inquiry into broadband access in Scotland. I will briefly run through the issues that the paper raises.

First, it points out that, as our predecessor committee already held a partial inquiry into broadband and a lot of other information exists on the subject, we want to avoid any duplication in our inquiry. We should examine the implementation of the Executive's strategy and the barriers that are being encountered in rural and certain urban areas, and find out whether individuals and businesses are benefiting from the roll-out. A draft remit covering those issues is suggested in paragraph 9 of the paper and certain recommendations are set out in paragraph 20. Before I go through those recommendations, are there any general or specific comments on the remit or any other matter?

The impact on business of the roll-out of broadband is referred to. There is evidence of difficulties in accessing the grant system that is available through the enterprise companies for small businesses. There is a reluctance to give detailed invoices showing the breakdown between access for personal use and access for business use. That is a particular problem for people who run their business from home. It might be worth while to have some written or oral evidence on that matter.

Are you suggesting that the matter should be written specifically into the remit?

No—it can be covered under the impact on business.

I agree with what is said on the first page of the proposed remit about the importance of building on work that has been done to date and not repeating it. I am concerned about some of the questions in the remit—about the current status of roll-out and so on. We could fast-forward a little. We have a lot of factual information that provides a snapshot of our starting point, so I think that we can move on quickly. In the questions in the remit, we should shift the balance more towards questions to do with barriers to implementation—the precise point that Christine May raised. No one needs to go back to the fundamental questions of whether there are benefits in roll-out; rather, we should be asking how we can make things happen. I am happy to speak further to the clerks or to produce a written note about that. Although page 1 of the remit mentions the aspiration to move on, the questions that are posed will result in people giving evidence that reinvents the wheel. We could get some of the answers quickly on paper and so start a bit further along the road.

I take Susan Deacon's point; I would not want to go over ground that is well-trodden. We should be as focused as possible. Duplication will be likely to appear in written evidence and it will be up to us, in the people whom we call in and in the questions that we ask, to focus on issues that will take us forward and not simply repeat work that was done by the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee in 2001. I accept the possibility of our falling into that trap.

We have to be aware of that but there are significantly large areas of the country in which broadband is not available and in which there are no signs of its becoming available. We cannot ignore the issue of coverage or likely roll-out and many of the questions may well be answered in written submissions.

The proposed remit asks:

"what gaps in availability remain?"

Is that information not available? Can we not get a written report on that? The question is not one that we need to pose throughout the investigation; we should get that information in a written report at the outset.

I am sure that we can establish where the gaps are, but it might be interesting to find out how those gaps are to be filled under the existing mechanisms.

Thirteen months ago the Executive set a target of 70 per cent coverage by March of this year. It is a simple question to ask where we are on that. Are we at 65 per cent, with the further 5 per cent coming in the next two months, or are we only at 45 per cent?

I do not know whether those comments require anything to be changed in the proposed remit. Are people generally happy with it?

The outline inquiry schedule shows that, on 9 March, we plan to hear from an urban digital exclusion panel and a rural access panel. Will that be industry based or individual based? Who will be giving us evidence that might be useful?

We will need to do some research to find out, but I suspect that we would want to focus to some extent—although not exclusively—on businesses, given that we are the Enterprise and Culture Committee. For that matter, those who run small businesses will not separate their personal use from their business use, and personal use often has a business impact.

We are not only the committee that deals with enterprise; we are the committee that deals with lifelong learning, and one of the principal ways of accessing lifelong learning now is through the internet.

In answer to your original question, I hope that the make-up of the panels, without their getting out of control, would enable the spectrum of potential users that come from such areas, be they business or personal users, to be reflected. Some effort will be required to find out who those people are and to avoid getting simply the usual suspects or the people who shout the loudest, but I am open to suggestions from members of the committee.

I want to ensure that we also cover what will happen in those areas in which there will never be broadband, because there will never be 100 per cent broadband coverage—at least, not in the foreseeable future—and there may be alternatives to broadband that would equalise people's opportunities to access the internet throughout Scotland. I am not sure whether that is included, but I would like us to consider it.

Forgive me if I am wrong about the technology, but I suspect that ADSL will not be everywhere but that it is not an impossible target for broadband—as defined simply by the amount of data that can be transferred in a given amount of time—to be available everywhere, as it requires only different technology to implement it.

I am probably confusing ADSL with broadband.

Our Scottish Parliament information centre adviser is here, so perhaps he could comment.

He was nodding his head vigorously during the convener's comments, so I take it that they were right.

Do we agree the recommendations?

Members indicated agreement.

I am conscious that we have already lost two members of the committee. There is nothing time barred in the review of progress to date on the renewable energy inquiry under item 5, so I suggest that we defer that item to the end of next week's meeting, with the proviso that we will discuss it then, even if we run on a bit.

Why not make it item 1 of next week's agenda?

Well, we have three panels of witnesses and it is often difficult to keep to time if we have an open-ended item at the beginning. I would rather start at least one set of witnesses on time, if nothing else.

That is one way of looking at it; the other way of looking at it is that it concentrates the mind. However, I am happy to go along with your suggestion.

I agree with the convener's suggestion, but I presume that we have just agreed the schedule for the broadband inquiry, and I am worried that we are putting too much into some of the meetings. For example, on 16 March, we might have evidence from persons who make interesting written submissions. I worry that we are giving ourselves too much to do in some of the meetings.

The schedule is simply indicative at the moment. We can decide nearer the time whether it is too heavy. We can usually manage to get through at least three panels of witnesses, if we are to justify our salaries.

I realise that a balance must be struck between formal committee business that is reported in the Official Report and informal events, but it strikes me that broadband is a topic on which the early stages of our deliberation lend themselves to a more round-table session that doubles as a briefing and lets us get quickly up to speed on the stage that the technology has reached and some of the practical problems of implementation. At the beginning of the parliamentary session, we discussed the fact that we want to continue to develop and explore innovative ways of engaging with people, as the previous Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee did, and there might be scope to do that on broadband in a way that adds value and does not detract from formal evidence-taking sessions.

Recommendation (e) in paragraph 20 of the paper mentions that there will be an informal event on broadband.

It is mentioned in paragraph 18.

Yes. It is also in recommendation (e) in paragraph 20. Scottish Enterprise has planned an event, provisionally for March, in which we will brainstorm on broadband in the same way as we did at the event on energy.

Whether the timing will fit with our inquiry is a little bit iffy. Perhaps we could ask the clerks to contact Scottish Enterprise and firm up the date so that it will fit. If Scottish Enterprise was to say that it has decided to run the event in June, that would not help us.

I think that Scottish Enterprise is conscious of the timescale of our inquiry and is keen to organise the event to fit in with it.

Meeting closed at 16:45.