Conservatives will scrap 50p broadband tax

Some parts of the UK do still not have good broadband access

A Conservative government would scrap the mandatory 50p a month tax on phone lines proposed in the government's Digital Britain report, shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt told the Financial Times today.

The government proposed the tax to raise £175m to pay for universal broadband coverage - ensuring a speed of 2 Mbit/s for everyone in the country.

Some parts of the country still do not have access to high-speed broadband because it is not commercially viable for companies to extend their networks to more remote regions.

Hunt said any Conservative government would scrap the tax "as soon as possible" if it won the election due next summer.

The proposal is not law yet but is expected to be brought before parliament in a "digital economy" bill next month.

Hunt also hinted that he would look at the BBC's distortion of the online news market.

"It might sound well and good for them to have, say, an angling website, but if it drove every angling magazine in the country out of business, you would have to question if it was the right sort of thing to do," he said.

Many newspapers currently struggling with developing models to monetise online news are claiming that the BBC distorts the market by providing services for free.