Julie James: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I begin my contribution today by thanking both the Welsh Conservatives for bringing this very important debate forward and all the people who have spoken? I think it’s been clear from the debate that, actually, we broadly agree the principles, which are that lifelong learning is extremely important to people from all backgrounds and all ages, and...
Julie James: Formally.
Julie James: Well, just to say that the issues are very much the same. This is a rural programme, as everyone will know. We’re very reliant on being told the local information. Many Members have been assiduous in writing to me about their problems. It would be really great if you could interrogate the interactive map and make sure that the data on it are as accurate as it is possible for them to be. You...
Julie James: Yes, and I'm very grateful to John Griffiths for raising the detail that he has raised with me over this. It's very frustrating. My information at the moment is that all of the services that AB were providing have now been restored, albeit with temporary fixes, and that the administrators have sent out information packs to prospective purchasers and are obviously hopeful that they'll be able...
Julie James: I completely accept the point the Member is making about how essential the services are. If the Member has specific instances with BT where they are making excuses, as he puts it, which have been proven not to be the case, I would be most interested to know the details. I am aware of specific instances of landowners being very difficult, actually, but it is always interesting to understand...
Julie James: The Member makes an excellent point with the last point there. The issue around universal service obligation has been one that’s exercised us for some time. We put a lot of pressure on the UK Government to acknowledge that this is a utility and not a luxury. I say this a lot to everyone. When we started this process, we used to market Wales as, ‘Come to Wales and get offline’, and now...
Julie James: In terms of the average speeds across Wales, I think the report you’re referring to is a year or so old now, but I absolutely accept that those premises that haven’t got broadband through Superfast Cymru or through the commercial roll-out are obviously still in whatever position they were in before. That’s what this successor scheme is about: it’s to address exactly that problem....
Julie James: Apologies.
Julie James: Well, that was quite a comprehensive list of things. We sent a consultation document out, which I hope all Members have received, and that has a web link in it to an interactive map. If you go on to that map, which I hope at least some Members will have had the opportunity to do already, you’ll be able to see that you can go down to individual premises level. And there’s an icon on the...
Julie James: We will be working with BT as part of this process—they’re going to be bidding for it like anybody else, I’m sure—about the best way to enable some extra capacity, and we continue to have the difficulty of people at the end of a long copper wire on an FTTC connection, and we’ll need to look carefully at how we can enable those to get broadband connections and come up with a solution...
Julie James: Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Today, I want to provide you with an update on our Superfast Cymru project and progress towards a successor project. The current Superfast Cymru project continues to make good progress. To the end of March 2017, BT has told us that more than 645,000 premises have been given access to fast-fibre broadband by the Superfast Cymru project. BT has confirmed...
Julie James: I just wanted to share a few short anecdotes from our family about Rhodri and Julie as well. One cherished story in our family is: long before Rhodri had ever become a public figure, in their early relationship, Julie took Rhodri up to meet my grandparents in a little cottage on a hill above Swansea. My grandmother was a very sociable Welsh mam and would have been full of tea and Welsh cakes,...
Julie James: Yes, I accept the frustration of that. The letters do also say, of course, that dates are always subject to change, depending on engineering works and so on. We do try to give the most accurate information, and I absolutely acknowledge the frustration for those caught in a situation that changes in that way. So, we work very hard to make sure that information is accurate and the number of...
Julie James: I acknowledge the issue around the moving timescales, which we’ve discussed many times in this Chamber, and we have worked very hard with BT to make them give much more realistic time frames. Sometimes, it’s just not possible for them to understand what the engineering difficulties might be on the ground, but we have a very regular meeting with them where I go through evidence provided by...
Julie James: To date, the Superfast Cymru project has invested over £48.6 million in providing 171,498 homes and businesses in Mid and West Wales with access to superfast broadband connectivity, delivering average speeds of over 73 Mbps.
Julie James: The Government’s been working very closely with the city deal partners in order to get the deal signed and approved, and to make sure that we have, although it’s not an appropriate word, shovel-ready projects—I don’t know—or finger-ready projects to go in this area—I’m not quite sure what the analogy is there. We’ve been working very hard as well with ESTnet, for example, to...
Julie James: Trudy is an excellent role model—indeed, she co-presented with me at the WISE event that we had to get women into STEM here in the Senedd, which was an excellent event. We’ve worked very hard to get recognition of all of the aspects of the report on women in a talented Wales—I never get the title quite right—which, basically, is a cross-Government and cross-sector—business as...
Julie James: I certainly will. The successful signing of the £1.3 billion Swansea bay city region city deal will provide an enormous economic boost, with investment spread right across the region, driving growth right across the south-west Wales region. I am sure that the Member knows that it’s been developed as a vision of how the region can position itself to take advantage of next-generation...
Julie James: The strong performance of the ICT sector has created over 9,300 high-value jobs in Wales and we have the fastest growing digital economy outside of London. Our ongoing support to this enabling sector will assist the development of all Welsh businesses through the increased adoption of digital technologies.
Julie James: I think that’s a really interesting idea. So, there’s nothing to stop collections of small businesses, community interest groups—it’s not closed in any way, so anyone can apply for it. I’m more than happy to explore the idea of assisting collections of businesses to apply as well; although we haven’t done that yet, it’s a good idea well worth taking forward. There’s nothing to...
