It is a fact of political life that sometimes the best ideas can take what seems a long time to translate into a successful outcome.
I was reminded of this most recently on a lousy (weather-wise) day at the top end of Coverdale.
Standing by a new telecommunications mast – one of a number that are being switched on this year in the most isolated parts of the Yorkshire Dales – I recalled a speech I made in the House of Commons ten years ago.
I was making a point in a debate about the digital economy, highlighting the issue many of us had in North Yorkshire at that time with poor or non-existent mobile phone and broadband coverage.
I spoke of the examples I had come across in Australia and Germany where mobile phone companies had been required to extend their networks to rural areas and to share masts to provide a choice to consumers.
Fast forward to March 2020 and I was again speaking in the House, this time delivering my first Budget as Chancellor.
That Budget will, of course, be chiefly remembered for the first of a series of measures I announced designed to help the country cope with the coronavirus pandemic.
But also in that Budget was another announcement – the launch of something called the Shared Rural Network. It was a £1bn collaboration between the Government and the mobile phone networks to get more masts built in rural areas and to get the phone companies to share them. The costs would be split roughly 50:50 between the companies and Government.
Given what was going on in the country at the time it was hardly surprising that it did not attract much attention – but it is something I am very proud of.
The Shared Rural Network took advantage of another Government programme to build a new communications network for the emergency services. That programme was paying for a new network of masts – nine in the most isolated parts of our area, 300 across the UK – so it made sense that the Shared Rural Network used these masts, as well as building additional ones.
It ensured the public got the best value out of this huge investment in the nation’s digital infrastructure.
All these masts have either been switched on or will be by the end of the year, filling in notorious ‘not-spots’ and bringing decent 4G service levels to thousands of residents and businesses.
By the end of the SRN programme, 95 per cent of our area should have access to 4G outdoor coverage supplied by all four mobile network operators.
That is a huge step towards bridging a digital divide between the nation’s cities and its rural areas which I referred to in my Commons speech in 2016.
At that get-together at the mast in Coverdale last month, I met the man who has spearheaded the Shared Rural Network programme on behalf of the mobile networks.
Ben Roome, CEO of the organisation set up by the mobile networks to deliver the SRN programme, said he had been in the public gallery of the House of Commons on the day I delivered that Budget and kick-started the process which had led to this improvement in rural connectivity.
Truly, a full circle moment for both of us.
