Faster and more reliable broadband for residents has been my priority since being elected to Parliament so I was pleased to see the latest statistics from Ofcom showing that full fibre gigabit broadband availability across the constituency of Arundel & South Downs has increased by 53% since 2020. The average broadband download speed rose by 36% between 2019 and 2021 from 38.8 Mbps to an impressive 52.9 Mbps.
That doesn’t help if you are one of those left behind although the number of households with connections slower than 10 Mbps has also fallen by 42% since 2019. Last year, I helped to win up to £112 million from Government to improve 68,000 broadband connections in ‘hard-to-reach’ premises across West Sussex under a scheme starting in 2022 and running through 2023 so there should be more good news on broadband coming soon.
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A key focus in Parliament is monitoring the escalating situation of great concern in Ukraine. Peace in Europe and the rightful freedoms of the Ukrainian people are under threat with reportedly over 100,000 Russian troops massed on their border. We cannot know what Putin has in mind, but Russia has attacked Ukraine before, illegally annexing Crimea in 2014 and bringing war to the Donbas region, so the danger is real.
The UK is taking this threat seriously and the Prime Minister visited Keiv this week as well as leading diplomatic efforts by holding talks with President Putin. Separately, the UK is taking part in UN Security Council talks to apply pressure on Russia to follow the road of diplomacy. We are also balancing our diplomatic approach with a hard deterrence – doubling troop numbers to Estonia and have the HMS Prince of Wales on standby to move should tensions rise further. We are NATO’s biggest spender in Europe on defence and prepared to deploy our forces in line with that.
What happens in Europe matters for the world and Ukraine has a right to determine its own future. I am fully supportive of our efforts to show the Russian Government that there are no rewards for aggression, and to respect our longstanding global commitments to peace and freedom.
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Last Friday, I had the opportunity to meet local farmers and NFU representatives hosted by farmer Will Tupper at Parsonage Farm in Bignor. I value a regular dialogue with local farmers and am always happy to support them by taking back their comments to Ministers in Westminster. I fully share farmers ambitions to see the UK more self-sufficient in high quality food production whilst protecting our South Downs landscape and habitats.
