I’m delighted to have been asked to contribute a column to this newspaper, and preparing for my first copy made me look at some of the promises I made when I was first elected in 2015 (alongside Jo Churchill, MP for Bury St Edmunds, who moves deservedly to the whips’ office and in so doing frees up this writing opportunity for her neighbour). The most satisfying thing is to see important promises that really have been delivered. Since 2015 my Suffolk colleagues and I have focused relentlessly on better connectivity for the county. In particular, we promised much wider access to superfast broadband and good quality mobile signal, not to mention improvements to our crucial road and rail links.
On internet connectivity – once a rarity, now a perquisite utility - we made a manifesto commitment to extend superfast broadband to 95% of the UK. Thus, I was delighted when Digital Secretary Matt Hancock, another West Suffolk neighbour, confirmed only last week that we had successfully hit this target. In the East of England the average broadband download speed increased from 3.1 Mbps in 2010 to 26.2 Mbps at the end of 2017. On top of this, 94.06% of all premises in the region now have access to superfast internet speeds of 24 Mbps or more. Behind the statistics and megabyte measurements, this represents a very real breakthrough in connectivity for thousands of families previously frustrated with slow download and upload speeds.
Of course, such ‘progress’ compounds the frustration of those still waiting for faster broadband – I fully appreciate that, and sympathise. Anecdotally, I can genuinely say that far fewer of my constituency cases relate to broadband issues (once my most common letter-writing subject), but plenty still do, and the Government fully appreciates that we now need to focus on the hardest to reach parts of our rural areas.
When I first moved to South Suffolk I did not have superfast broadband, but was fortunate enough to discover that I could achieve really good download speeds through a mobile ‘dongle’. It was this realisation, together with the despairing feedback of voters in ‘not spot’ (i.e. signal free) villages – and even parts of our market towns – that made me treat mobile issues with the same priority as those for fixed line access. We had an early breakthrough in this area: my first ever Prime Minister’s Question was to David Cameron on the subject of mobile phone coverage and I was delighted when he confirmed that villages in the constituency would be receiving subsidised masts because they were not commercially viable. Wind forward to today and my very worst ‘not spots’ either have new masts (e.g. Bildeston and Boxford); they are on the way (e.g. Stutton/Holbrook) or signal has improved without requiring new masts given the very welcome boost from low frequency provision. Few will have been aware of the low frequency program, but believe me, many in South Suffolk have seen their connectivity significantly improved.
Looking on the promises I made in relation to transport connectivity, I am proud of the way Suffolk MPs worked as a team – with the important input of my former Ipswich colleague Ben Gummer – to deliver the ‘Norwich in 90’ program. This has been crucial in getting us to the franchise we have today and its ambitious program of new rolling stock not just on some services but for the entire Greater Anglia fleet. That said, particular promises in the franchise were made in relation to my constituency, not least the delivery of a major new rail depot to regenerate the Brantham industrial site, and I am frustrated that we are now seeing serious problems with this project that offered so much. I am meeting Network Rail on Monday to see if the issues that have arisen around the Manningtree level crossing can be addressed.
On roads, I promised to focus on a Sudbury bypass and the A12/A14. We recently launched an outline business case for the latter, and on the former, Suffolk’s current batch of MPs have also worked as a team to push the case for a major overhaul of the Copdock interchange. That is one key promise we cannot afford to fail on.
Article by James Cartlidge MP. Published by the East Anglian Daily Times.