Lack of access to superfast broadband and poor mobile phone coverage are the biggest obstacles to increasing productivity in the Highlands and Islands, former Scottish secretary Alistair Carmichael warned yesterday.
Scotland’s only Liberal Democrat MP made the remarks as the UK Government published its plan for raising productivity over the next decade.
Infrastructure investment is identified as one of the key drivers of productivity in the strategy, which highlights the need for reliable and high-quality fixed and mobile broadband connections.
It hails the UK Government’s superfast broadband programme, which it says is adding an additional 40,000 premises every week. Superfast speeds of at least 24Mbps are due to be available to 95% of UK households by 2017.
Mr Carmichael, who is vice chairman of the new all-party parliamentary group on broadband and mobile telecoms, emphasised the need to identify the other 5% and tell householders where they stand.
“There needs to be greater effort to identify these houses that are not going to be met with the current scheme and see what can be done,” he said.
“For the Highlands and Islands, this is the single most important piece of infrastructure that will increase productivity, growth and economic activity – along with mobile phone coverage and getting 3 and 4 G coverage to the Highlands and Islands.”
The Orkney and Shetland MP said both the UK and Scottish governments had invested substantial amounts of money in the broadband roll-out but criticised the “frustratingly slow” delivery by BT and Highland and Islands Enterprise (HIE).
An HIE spokesman said progress was on target in relation to its project – due to end in 2016.
He added: “I realise it’s frustrating for people because everyone wants better broadband now, but it’s a big job. I’m sure BT are going as fast as they can.”
Launching the plan in Birmingham, business secretary Sajid Javid described productivity as “one of the few areas of the economy where Britain is struggling”.
He added: “In stark terms, it now takes a worker in the UK five days to produce what his or her counterparts in Germany can deliver in four.”