The UK Government’s former Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has today formally been appointed as the country’s next Prime Minister and the third to enter 10 Downing Street since the summer, after the roller coaster rides of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. We take a quick look at what this might mean for broadband, mobile and internet policy.
At the time of writing it’s unclear, at least in terms of his policy around telecoms and digital connectivity, what Sunak will do differently from his predecessors. Sunak is known to have broadly supported the Government’s £5bn(US$5.74billion) Project Gigabit broadband rollout, which aims to make gigabit-capable internet connections available “nationwide” (realistically 99%+) by 2030.
During his time as Chancellor, he also visited a number of fibre optic network builds, such as those from B4RN, Openreach and Jurassic Fibre. Likewise, he supports the £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network project (inc. £500m of public investment), which is working to extend geographic 4G coverage to 95 per cent of the UK by the end of 2025.
In many ways, we expect Sunak to be a continuity candidate, at least when it comes to the telecoms and broadband side of things (wider tax and spending policy is another matter entirely). Much like Liz Truss, he also appears to favour taking a softer approach to the Online Safety Bill (OSB), which seeks to regulate what people say online, but which in its current form risks becoming a Draconian mess of unworkable measures that stifles freedom of expression by the backdoor.
UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak said: “The United Kingdom is a great country but we face a profound economic crisis. https://news.knowledia.com
