Diolch, Lywydd. Following my written statement yesterday I want today to just restate those plans for further investment superfast broadband following the completion of Superfast Cymru next year. We’ve been very clear about our ambitions in ‘Taking Wales Forward’ to bring fast, reliable broadband to every property in Wales. Our achievements to date should not be underestimated. Superfast Cymru is a massive project bringing access to superfast broadband to now nearly 614,000 homes and businesses, and having invested over £162 million of EU and public funding. To be clear, that is 614,000 premises that would not have been able to access fast fibre broadband without our intervention.

We are not finished yet. The final year will see a further 100,000 premises being given access to fast fibre broadband. This will involve investing up to a further £62 million. But we’re not going to stop there. We are currently assessing the responses to the recent consultation with the telecoms industry in relation to an additional £12.9 million to extend the reach of the Superfast Cymru project next year. This is the amount that BT had forecasted will be returned to the public purse through the gainshare clause within the current Superfast Cymru contract. We still need to carry out a detailed analysis and dialogue with BT and we expect that this additional funding will enable additional premises to be reached through the Superfast Cymru contract by December 2017.

Given that the Superfast Cymru contract will end next year, we have already embarked on the preparatory work necessary to establish the successive broadband investment project. To reiterate, the gainshare clause allows the Welsh Government to benefit from the success of our investment in BT’s network via the Superfast Cymru project. Our share is invested in a fund to be either reinvested in the project or returned, with interest, to the Welsh Government in 2023.

We anticipate, based on detailed modelling, that the Superfast Cymru investment fund will eventually yield between £30 million and £50 million by 2023 as take-up of fibre services funded by our investment reaches between 35 per cent and 50 per cent over that period. We will support this activity through our commitment to provide £20 million over the next four years to support this activity and to leverage significant additional investment.

We are in the early stages of discussions with the Welsh European Funding Office to secure a further £20 million of structural funds to continue the roll-out of superfast broadband. We remain confident that the funding will be available, subject to WEFO approval, as a result of the UK Treasury’s guarantee to honour EU bids approved prior to the UK’s exit from the EU. We will continue to press the UK Government for additional investment in Wales that builds on the success of Superfast Cymru and contributes to UK Government policy goals. We also have an outstanding commitment from the UK Government of £2 million towards a new superfast broadband project.

Taken together, Superfast Cymru will be underpinned by a public sector budget of up to £80 million, which in turn will leverage private sector match funding to further extend broadband coverage to the hardest-to-reach premises across Wales by 2020. The Access Broadband Cymru scheme will continue to play a part, with a further £1.5 million over the next two years to ensure that this vital lifeline operates in parallel to Superfast Cymru and successor projects, with equivalent funding in place to extend for a further two years beyond 2018.

We will launch an open-market review this month to establish, at a premises-by-premises level, where superfast broadband has been delivered to date and where the market plans to invest over the next three years. We will also engage with the telecoms market over the next weeks and months to help shape and inform our intervention area and procurement strategy. In developing the next intervention, value for money will continue to be a priority, and I need to remind Members that we cannot provide fibre connectivity at any cost.

We currently aim to launch the procurement process in February 2017 so that a contract can be awarded in January 2018. Getting to the final few per cent is going to be challenging and will take time, but by starting now we will be in the best possible position when the Superfast Cymru project comes to an end next year. Thank you. Diolch.