The CLA, which represents landowners, farmers and rural businesses, says that poor broadband connection is leaving rural areas at an economic and social disadvantage.

The group was giving evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Select Committee as part of an inquiry into broadband coverage in remote rural areas.

CLA President Henry Robinson said that ensuring universal access to a modern broadband connection is vital to ending the economic disadvantages faced by rural areas.

Investment

The Government is investing over £1 billion in improving broadband and mobile infrastructure.

The plans are to provide superfast broadband coverage to 90% of the UK by 2016 and provide basic broadband (2Mbps) for all by 2016. It has also announced plans to improve mobile coverage in remote areas by 2016.

Statistics from January claim that the Government’s transformation of broadband in rural areas is on track to deliver coverage to 95% of the country by 2017.

But the CLA says that, despite recognising the importance of broadband to the countryside more than 10 years ago, the fact that inquiries like this are still taking place demonstrates that progress has been slower than a dial-up internet connection.

Ralph Crathorne, Partner at Strutt & Parker and specialist in Land Management and Strategic Estate Planning, says: “The reality is that at my rural home I pay for a super-fast 80 Mbps connection. By the time this has travelled down 2 kilometres of telephone line it has dwindled to just 0.5 Mbps - a tiny fraction of the performance I am paying for. It remains to be seen whether this government investment will change what amounts to rural discrimination.”

Universal Service Obligation

The CLA called for the Committee to recommend a Universal Service Obligation for access to broadband.

This includes a fixed-line broadband service of at least 10 Megabits per second (Mbps) and looking at using alternative technologies like satellite to ensure the needs of the final five percent of rural areas not currently connected are met.

Mr Robinson also questioned the rollout of digital-only access for payments made to farmers by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA). From January, applications can only be made online to the RPA for the Basic Payment Scheme.

While he says that the Government is confident that moving to online-only applications for farm payments will work - and that the CLA has been working with RPA officials on the Assisted Digital programme - he is still concerned there will be lots of farmers who do not have adequate broadband connections.

He is calling for training and support to be made available to the 12,000 rural businesses still struggling to get online.