'Unacceptable that London has worse broadband than Bucharest' - MPs' group

Slow: MPs slammed London's broadband speed as 'damaging'
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London’s lacklustre broadband speeds were today slammed as “extremely damaging” by a new cross-party pressure group of the capital’s MPs.

In its first big intervention since its launch in June, the All Party Parliamentary Group on London called on ministers to stop the city lagging behind European rivals.

The broadside comes two days after the Government boasted that superfast broadband has now been rolled out to three million homes and firms and would cover 95 per cent of the country in two years - a claim greeted with scepticism in some areas.

Bob Neill, the co-chair of the new group and MP for Bromley & Chislehurst, wrote to Communications Minister Ed Vaizey demanding a meeting to discuss the experiences of London companies suffering from inadequate speeds.

“The list of those [countries] we lag behind not only includes cities of comparable status, such as Paris, but others including Bucharest, Vilnius, Stockholm and Bern.

“This is extremely frustrating for homeowners in constituencies like mine who understandably expect, living within 10 miles of central London, an adequate coverage,” he said. “It is also extremely damaging to businesses of all sizes, undermining our reputation as a global city.”

The intervention could help focus the political debate more on “not-spots” in London rather than just rural communities. The APPG was launched to give London issues more clout at Westminster, where Scottish and northern region MPs have often seemed to be better lobbyists in the past.

Inquiries are set to be launched soon by the Culture Select Committee and the Public Accounts Committee.

Mr Vaizey said he understood the “frustration” of people who did not have broadband but said Government investment was quickly improving coverage.

“There are three million homes now that have broadband that wouldn’t have had broadband,” he said. “We have the best broadband of the big five economies in Europe.”

A damning Lords report earlier this year found London had dropped four places in the European league table since 2009.

London’s average speed of 25.44 megabits per second (Mbps) “contrasted drastically” with Bucharest, which boasted 80.14 Mbps on average.

The city’s average was 10Mbps slower than the European average of 36.4Mbps.

Mayor Boris Johnson held a summit with major internet companies last summer that led to an advisory group to promote superfast connections across the capital.

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