What do the 2024 Party Manifestos say on broadband?

In 14 days the nation will be lining up at the polling stations to cast their vote in the 2024 General Election and a reminder if voting in person to take a valid photo ID with you. If you can vote but don’t have a valid photo ID you have until Wednesday 26th June to apply for a voter authority certificate.

The last couple of weeks since the General Election was called and Parliament dissolved has seen the parties scrambling to put their party manifesto together. Remember the manifesto is not a legally binding set of promises, but will outline the ambitions and direction each party wants to follow.

We’ve trawled the manifestos and using a random number generator to create an order to show the extracts we present what we can see from each manifesto with regard to broadband.

• Labour Party

  • In an ever more connected world, Britain’s communication network is also vital. Under the Conservatives, investment in 5G is falling behind other countries and the rollout of gigabit broadband has been slow. Labour will make a renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030.

• Green Party
  • No mention of broadband, the Internet or Gigabit broadband.
• Reform UK
  • No mention of broadband, the Internet or Gigabit broadband.
• Sinn Fein
  • No mention of broadband, the Internet or Gigabit broadband.
• Liberal Democrats

  • Ensure that gigabit broadband is available to every home and business, including in rural and remote communities, and support local bespoke solutions so that no property is left out.

• Democratic Unionist Party
  • Manifesto has not been published as of 9am 20th June 2024
• Plaid Cymru

  • Plaid Cymru has previously called for the establishment of a Welsh Broadband Infrastructure Company. We have also called for the UK Government to release more Project Gigabit money ncreasing the investment to tackle the “very hard to reach areas” or the “total not-spots” where there is no fast broadband or 4G signal at all and bring the timescales forward. We will also push for more investment in alternative technology projects especially in the “very hard to reach” areas e.g. small cell projects / Fixed Wireless Access.

• The Conservative and Unionist Party

  • We have transformed our digital infrastructure by rolling out gigabit broadband to over a million hard to reach premises, helping to deliver high-speed internet to over 80% of the country. We are set to achieve at least 85% gigabit coverage of the UK by 2025 and nationwide coverage by 2030. Our ambition is for all populated areas to be covered by ‘standalone’ 5G mobile connectivity and to keep the UK at the forefront of adopting and developing 6G.

• Scottish National Party

  • With the full powers of independence we could do much more but until then, to relieve the immediate pressure on households, SNP MPs at Westminster will: Call for a statutory social tariff for energy,
    broadband and mobile charges for all who need one

The random generator which we ran to give each party a number between 1 and 100, generated the order with values 4, 16, 28, 31, 52, 53, 63, 90 and 94.

One reason perhaps for broadband and continued roll-out of Gigabit and full-fibre broadband is mentioned less than readers might expect is that there has been indications of cross party support to keep investment going and push Gigabit coverage ever closer to 100%. The differences arise largely about how its funded and how those funds are to be disbersed.

It is somewhat surprising that the Internet and broadband is given so little time in all the manifestos considering how much it under pins the modern economy and all the changes it has already brought about.

Our broadband map showing the Gigabit coverage levels as of Saturday 15th June across the 650 Westminster constituencies will let you see how your area compares. If you prefer a simple list then all 650 can be see and sorted on our constituency list. There is no historical timeline for the constituencies due to the widespread boundary changes.