Rural mobile gaps put rural taxi and private hire services in the firing line, MPs warn
- Perry Richardson
- 10 minutes ago
- 3 min read
MPs have pressed the Government and mobile operators to improve rural mobile connectivity, warning that unreliable signal is increasingly undermining day-to-day services and local economies, including rural taxi and private hire work that still relies on dependable voice and data coverage.
Opening a Backbench Business debate in the House of Commons on 12 February 2026, Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan said rural residents and businesses are routinely unable to make calls or connect to mobile data, describing the situation as a basic infrastructure failure in an era where landlines have moved to digital services.
Morgan said constituents shared repeated examples of having to hunt for reception, quoting one resident who said: “Finding 4G is like striking gold.” She also highlighted cost and fairness concerns for rural consumers paying full price for what MPs described as a second-rate service, quoting an 80-year-old disabled veteran who said they were “paying the same amount for my unreliable mobile service that someone in an area with good mobile signal pays.”
For the taxi and private hire sector, Morgan explicitly linked poor connectivity to commercial harm, telling MPs: “I have heard from farmers, landscape gardeners, taxi drivers and dog groomers whose businesses all suffer because of signal problems.” The comments mirror longstanding operational complaints from rural operators where jobs can be missed, bookings fail to reach drivers, and mapping and payments become unreliable when coverage drops out.
MPs call for action on rural mobile coverage as poor signal disrupts rural businesses including taxi drivers
A central thread of the debate was distrust in how mobile coverage is measured and communicated. Morgan said the mapping data provided to Ofcom is “often false” and pointed to an independent survey by the River Severn Partnership, working with Streetwave and supported by councils using bin lorry routes, which found a wide gap between the regulator’s picture and what users experience on the ground. Morgan told MPs that Ofcom recorded 1.45% of geographic areas without “good” voice capability from at least one operator, while the independent work put the figure at 15.33% of postcodes.
Conservative MP Mark Pritchard backed calls for tougher scrutiny of operator data, urging stronger “transparency and integrity” requirements and more robust action by Ofcom where data appears inaccurate. The mapping dispute matters for taxi and PHV planning because operator coverage maps can influence where drivers are positioned, how dispatch systems allocate jobs, and whether businesses invest in digital-first booking channels in villages and market towns.
Other MPs also connected the issue to the shift to digital-by-default services and the knock-on effects for payments. Conservative MP Bradley Thomas said rural firms can be forced to travel to towns to submit forms or place orders and added: “Businesses cannot reliably place orders or process card payments.” For rural taxi and PHV, that risk extends to taking card payments, validating app-based bookings, receiving location updates, and maintaining contact with passengers and controllers in areas with patchy signal.
The Government response, delivered by DSIT minister Kanishka Narayan, said improving reported coverage accuracy is a “firm priority” and highlighted Ofcom’s “Map Your Mobile” tool, launched in June 2025, as part of efforts to strengthen consumer information. Narayan also reiterated the Shared Rural Network programme’s reported progress, aligning with Ofcom’s latest infrastructure reporting that 4G coverage from at least one operator reached 96% of the UK landmass as of July 2025, while MPs in the debate argued that headline figures can mask poor service quality in real locations and along rural routes.
The motion was agreed without a division, formally calling on the Government and service providers to help improve rural mobile connectivity, with MPs from multiple parties pushing for better measurement, accountability and delivery as reliance on mobile networks deepens across rural Britain.
