The next item on the agenda is the statement by the Minister for Skills and Science on the update on superfast broadband. I call on the Minister for Skills and Science, Julie James, to introduce the statement.

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 that sufficient premises are currently in build to realise its contractual commitment to provide access to superfast broadband delivering 30 Mbps download speeds to around 690,000 premises ahead of contract closure on 31 December this year. Also, additional premises will also be able to access speeds of between 24 Mbps and 30 Mbps.

I can further report that market information indicates that the commercial deployment of superfast services has also exceeded forecasts, yielding additional premises beyond our intervention area that can now access superfast broadband services. Members will be pleased to note the progress that fixed wireless provider Airband has made in delivering our contract to extend broadband access to numerous business parks across Wales. I am pleased to confirm that this deployment is now complete and covers a verified footprint of around 2,000 business premises across north and south Wales.

Our programme for government, ‘Taking Wales Forward’, is clear about our ambition to offer fast and reliable broadband to every property in Wales. As I have outlined in previous statements, we have already embarked on the preparatory work necessary to establish a successor broadband investment project. The new project will be underpinned by a public sector budget of around £80 million, which will in turn leverage private sector match funding to further extend broadband coverage to the hardest to reach premises across Wales by 2020.

We launched an open market review in November to establish, on a premises-by-premises basis, where superfast broadband has been delivered to date and where the market plans to invest over the next three years. We also began a series of industry engagement events in December to help shape and inform the future intervention area and procurement strategy. We intend to begin the next stage of the procurement process in September. The open market review process has yielded a list of over 98,000 premises that cannot currently access superfast broadband, and where telecommunications companies have no plans to reach them in the next three years.

Throughout this open market review process and our ongoing engagement with industry, we have invested considerable effort in improving the quality of the data that underpins our understanding of where the broadband gaps are across Wales. We are seeking to move from the postcode level data that we have relied on previously to data that can identify the broadband status of individual premises. We also adopted a cautious approach and tended to include premises, rather than exclude them, where there is doubt as to whether some locations should be classed as eligible premises. This means that some premises have been included that may not have been under previous open market reviews. We now need to test this data through consultation.

Today, I am launching a four-week public consultation on the results of the open market review. We are keen to hear the views of both the telecoms industry and residents and business owners on whether any further premises should be included, or whether any premises currently on the list should be excluded. To support this, the data available on our website will be at a very granular level. I encourage everyone afflicted by poor broadband to ensure that their individual premises are identified correctly on the map. I encourage Assembly Members and local authorities to apply their local knowledge to help ensure that this data is robust and accurate.

The consultation will help us to further refine the list of unconnected premises. Given the scale of the numbers involved, inevitably, the list of premises remaining will not be perfect, but the more responses we receive, the more comprehensive the list will be. To help respondents locate individual premises, an interactive map is available on the Welsh Government website. I would, therefore, ask that all Members share the list as widely as possible, and I will ensure that Members have the web address. The results of the public consultation will help to determine the procurement strategy, both in terms of the number and location of potential bidding lots, and whether any prioritisation criteria should be included. There will be further engagement with the industry and key stakeholders over the summer to refine our procurement approach. We intend to be in a position to invite formal tenders to deliver the new project in September, with the project commencing in early 2018.

Through this consultation period, I am keen to ensure that all views are heard. If there are communities that have an interest in driving their own solutions, I want to hear from them. If there are views on how we should lot the procurement, I want to hear them. And if there are views on how we should prioritise or target the funding, I want to hear those too.

It is clear to me that in parallel to the work set out above, our broadband voucher schemes will continue to offer a vital lifeline to homes and businesses. I am pleased to confirm that these schemes will remain, and will adjust and evolve to ensure that they remain relevant. I am pleased to announce today that in response to feedback from businesses, we have adjusted the terms and conditions of our ultrafast connectivity voucher to encompass a broader range of options. This change will introduce greater flexibility and will appeal to businesses that need assistance with construction and installation charges for mid-range broadband products, rather than switching to more high-end leased line products.

I am committed to achieving our ambitions in ‘Taking Wales Forward’ to offer fast, reliable broadband to every property in Wales. Diolch.

I would like to thank the Minister for her statement today, and to say that the Superfast Cymru project has undoubtedly improved the availability of fibre broadband across Wales, and this is very much to be welcomed.

However, it is undeniable that the Welsh Government have failed to deliver on their 2011 commitment to—and I quote—ensure that

‘all residential premises and businesses in Wales have access to next generation broadband by 2015.’

Paragraph 5.3.2 of the original Superfast Cymru contract states that a minimum of 90 per cent of all premises in the contract intervention area are capable of having access to broadband services at a minimum of 30 Mbps. By my reckoning, the 98,000 premises that you have identified as not being able to access superfast broadband in your statement today represents over 12 per cent of premises—a clear failure to meet the 90 per cent target. So, can I ask the Minister for clarity and to confirm what percentage of premises can actually receive superfast speeds?

The original open market review conducted by Mott MacDonald identified 45,000 premises in Wales that would not benefit from the project. Your statement today appears to be saying that this has now grown to 98,000—over double the original number. So, I would be grateful if you could explain why the figure has doubled and provide a full list of premises that are outside the scope of the project so that households and businesses that will definitely miss out can make contingency plans and alternative arrangements. If BT ultimately fails to meet its contractual obligations, are you expecting to receive clawback funding for these missed targets? If so, how much?

I also have to say that I am sceptical at the approach that sees the Government and BT count premises passed as a way of assessing who can receive fibre broadband. I’ve received reports of insufficient capacity in superfast broadband enabled areas for residents to connect to the network, meaning that, even though the network technically passed the premises, residents are unable to procure a service. So, I would be grateful if you could outline what you are doing to rectify these capacity issues that are preventing people from accessing fibre broadband that has been provided at a cost to the public purse.

The project is also still plagued, I’d say, with communication issues, which see residents being told one month that they’ll have access to fibre broadband by a certain date, only to be told a few weeks later that they won’t receive it at all. This is unacceptable and I would like assurances from you, Minister, today, that the successor scheme has a contractual obligation built into it that will see an improvement in public communications. You mentioned in your statement that communities can drive forward their own solutions. Well, they can’t; not if they’re being told insufficient information.

Turning to the target for superfast take-up, in previous statements, you’ve said that the Welsh Government is now placing a greater emphasis on demand stimulation, but there’s no mention of this today in your statement. So, will you therefore confirm: what is the current take-up of fibre broadband in the intervention area? Given the fact that it’s in the Welsh Government’s interest, I’d say, to aggressively promote take-up as a result of benefitting from gain share, are you intending on revising upwards the woefully low take-up target of 50 per cent by 2024?

Finally, you referred to the broadband voucher scheme and said that these schemes will be adjusted to provide additional flexibility. This, I have to say, is to be welcomed, as the ultrafast connectivity voucher scheme has come, I would say, under some criticism for it being disproportionately focused on high-end products and having insufficient flexibility—an issue I raised with you, I know, some 18 months ago. So, I would be grateful if you could provide additional detail on how the voucher scheme will be adapted for the successor scheme and confirm that the successor scheme will also have a focus on upload speeds as well as download speeds.

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 top of each individual premises that says what we think is happening in that particular building. So, you should be able to see whether it’s a square, a triangle or a red dot, or whatever, and there’s a key along the side of it that tells you what those symbols mean: more than one provider, only one provider, only wireless, and so on. We’re very, very keen to ensure that that information is as accurate as possible, so we really would like to get as wide a consultation as possible on that. So, for those of you who have constituents who’ve written to me, or you’ve written to me about groups of people or communities, I’d be really grateful if you’d check the maps to make sure that the information matches what you understand to be the case.

In terms of some of the other questions, on the number of premises, the contractual commitment for BT is about the number of premises; it was never a percentage. The percentage that was talked about in 2011 was the percentage of premises available in Wales in 2011. I mean, quite clearly, a lot more premises have been built since 2011 to now, so you would never have expected the number to stay the same. Indeed, that’s one of the issues that several Members in the Chamber have highlighted, because there was a big issue in the open market review about new-build premises afterwards. They weren’t included, and that’s been a constant problem, and I’m expecting to have to address that.

The other thing is that the way that the mapping has been done is a lot more accurate. I’ve already checked my own constituency area this morning, just out of interest, and you can immediately see that some of the premises identified are statues, for example, and I’m pretty sure they won’t want to be broadband enabled. Others are: there’s a reservoir identified in my constituency, which I don’t think needs broadband, although I could check with Welsh Water as to whether they have some kind of service that they might need at the reservoir and so on. So, the mapping is a great deal more accurate than it was in 2011, but it’s not as accurate as we’d like it to be and we’d very much like information back from you about the accuracy or otherwise of that. There’s absolutely no point in us trying to get all the way up a track to a barn if, actually, nobody lives in it, for example.

That takes me onto the next thing, which is that we have put a great deal more money into demand stimulation. The current take-up is around 35 per cent. BT, as you know, estimated it to be 21 per cent, and we get a gain share for everything over that. It’s running at somewhere between 31 and 38 per cent, but the average is about 35 per cent at the moment, and as you’d expect, that’s going up all the time. It’s more for fibre to the cabinet than fibre to the premises at the moment, but that’s because the fibre-to-the-premises build has only very recently really ramped up. So, we’re very happy that the take-up exceeds the limit that BT set, because we’re getting a good gain share from that, but obviously the higher it climbs, the more money we get and so I’d be more than anxious to talk to you all about ways that you think you can stimulate demand in your local areas. We’re trying to do it nationally. I’m writing out to every single premises we think has got superfast asking them to take it up and so on.

I’m very interested in looking at communities of interest, as well. We have a completely open book here and I really would be very grateful to AMs who would come back to me about this. Should we try to target all the remaining farmers? Should we try to target all the remaining businesses? Should we try to target only those people who indicate to us they’d actually buy it? Some of these premises will be very expensive to get to. It would be sad to spend the money to get to them, only to find that the homeowner has no intention whatsoever of taking up the offer. It’s a genuinely open consultation, I really don’t know how we should prioritise it. We’re unlikely to actually get fibre cable to every premises in Wales. Clearly, that would be prohibitively expensive for some, so some will have to have alternative technology there. The voucher scheme will continue to be available to those people who are very unlikely to ever get fibre broadband. I’m afraid, if you live 14 miles up a track and you’re the only premises up there, it’s most unlikely to be economically efficient for us to do that—we’ll probably assist with a satellite or some such.

So, I am genuinely asking you what the best way of doing this actually is. If we have whole communities who’d like to have wireless, for example—so they’d like to have the broadband provided to a community centre, and then the whole village or community could be covered by a wireless signal instead of wired to each premise—we’re very happy to consider that. It’s one of the reasons we’ve adjusted the voucher scheme, so that communities can apply together to do that. As you know, it’s individual at the moment. There are other adjustments—Russell, you mentioned the ultrafast thing; we know that some businesses don’t want to go all the way to 100, but they need more than 30 and so on. Hefin David, actually—he’s not in the Chamber—has raised that with me several times, so have you, and so has David Rees. Clearly, a lot of businesses want that medium product that we’re looking at. So, there’s a wealth of things that we can do.

In terms of capacity issues in the network, we don’t pay BT when the cabinet is passed, we pay them when individual premises are passed. They get paid for the number of premises. So, if you think that we’ve accepted a premises, and, actually, they’re not getting it, do let me know because we can adjust that backwards. But I assure you, it’s on individual premises. I’m not saying, ‘Cabinet 16 is enabled, and therefore all the premises connected to it are getting superfast’, because they most certainly are not.

The Llywydd took the Chair.

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 that suits most of those communities to the best value of the public purse.

The ‘have access to’ commitment is exactly that. We continue to have a voucher scheme that allows people to access broadband. It doesn’t say it will be free and it doesn’t say that it will be fibre, because that is not deliverable. So, for some premises, ‘have access to’ means that we will share the cost of it with them, but every premises in Wales is eligible for the voucher scheme if they can’t get the fibre broadband network out to them, and that’s our definition of ‘have access to’. We can argue the semantics of it, and I probably think it could have been more felicitously worded, but that’s what that commitment meant, and it’s still what it means now.

We’re never going to get to 100 per cent of every single premises in Wales having fibre-optic broadband. It just is not economic for that. But what we are going to do is ensure that all of those who want it can access it through one means or another.

May I thank the Minister for her statement on superfast broadband? It’s true to say that— [Interruption.]

Apologies.

No problem at all. It’s true to say that since 2012 there’s been significant investment from European Union funds and the Welsh Government in broadband infrastructure in Wales, and so it looks as if the Welsh Government is going to reach that target of 690,000 premises by the end of the year.

The speed of broadband is vitally important for connectivity, as we’ve heard, and in terms of economic development across Wales, especially in our more rural areas. The House of Commons report, released in March this year, looks at broadband speeds across the United Kingdom and it shows that we need to close the gap between Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom in terms of the average broadband speed. The House of Commons report showed that the four slowest areas, on a ward level, for average broadband speeds in the United Kingdom are all in Wales, and that 65 per cent of the 20 slowest areas in the UK are also in Wales.

Since the beginning of the current broadband scheme, it’s clear that some areas and homes won’t receive superfast broadband through Superfast Cymru. Access Broadband Cymru, as we’ve heard, has provided broadband for a number of homes and hard-to-reach sites, and Airband has achieved improvements in a number of business parks, but it’s still true to say that there is a great deal to do in some parts of Wales.

As a party, we support the work that is being done to develop the broadband scheme to follow on from this current scheme. We’re pleased to see that the review of the open market is based on location and site, rather than postcode, which is wiser methodology that will lead to a more solid dataset. In terms of a question, you’ve talked a great deal in response to questions already, saying that you’ll be encouraging anyone out there who is affected by poor broadband access to ensure that they do respond during the consultation phase, and I’ve heard what you’ve already said on that. But to do that on a personal level for constituents out there who have problems, they will need to know about what happens now—to know about these developments and so on. How exactly are you going to go about promoting the consultation, and do you intend to raise awareness online, through radio or the press, for example?

In conclusion, it’s important to note that digital technology, like everything else, is changing quickly. Already, Ofcom has noted in its strategic review on digital communication, that the United Kingdom as a whole is failing compared to world leaders such as Japan, Spain and South Korea, in terms of developing services for broadband that are ultrafast. And the question that stems from that of course: I’d like to hear your opinion on how you see the Welsh Government closing the gap with the rest of the world in terms of ultrafast broadband over the coming years. Thank you.

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.

Wales has a very unique—I'm sure I've quoted this to Members before: Wales's population is spread out right across Wales, and so, to get signal to Wales, you need an awful lot more infrastructure than you do almost anywhere else in the UK. So, in Scotland, for example, the population's considerably more compact, and so it’s easier to get big services to them. So, we have a specific problem, and that’s why I’m asking all Members to help me to get the best information possible back for this map. So, if all of you use your local knowledge—we’re obviously going to be asking local authority partners to do this as well, and business partners and everybody who has written in to us, and we have a comms policy that obviously will include digital comms and so on. But, frankly, if you haven’t got superfast already, then you’re going to be very annoyed if we do a digital comms programme, because you’re not going to be able to upload the GIFs. So, we will be writing out to premises we know may have a difficulty. We’ll also be contacting communities of interest, so the farming unions and other people who have contacted us from business organisations and so on, asking them for feedback from their communities of interest. But there are geographical communities as well that might benefit from a combined response. I visited a couple of very good projects recently in the Llŷn peninsula, where a wireless broadband signal to a community hall has enabled an entire area. Indeed, the Llywydd will permit me in saying that some of them were in Ceredigion as well, and we’ve had some conversations about just that.

So, I’m very anxious to understand what the best way of spending this money is to get to the maximum number of premises as fast as possible. One size will not fit all. So, we’re not going to let a single contract to finish the rest of it off because, actually, that isn’t going to work. We’re going to need specific solutions for specific communities. It’s not a small undertaking, but we’re very determined to get there.

In terms of ultrafast, there’s a big ultrafast trial—I’m sure the Member knows—going on in Swansea at the moment, and obviously we’ll be looking to see how that works, and to see what its roll-out capabilities are. What’s really great about the superfast network is that, although we’ve specified 30 Mbps, actually, the average speeds that we know are being obtained over the network are about 80 Mbps; so, not far off ultrafast, which is normally thought to be 100 Mbps. But, indeed, this is going to be a constant problem for the world in updating these networks all the time, and it’s one of the things we need to keep in mind as we go forward into the future.

Minister, I welcome today’s statement on the Superfast Cymru project and the progress towards the successor project. I think, in this day and age, it’s right that the Welsh Government’s ambition is to deliver fast and reliable broadband to every property in Wales, and I’m pleased to note the progress it’s made. Given the amount of correspondence I’ve had from constituents and, as a consequence, you’ve had from me, I’ll be encouraging active participation in the public consultation at a local level.

But I just have a specific couple of questions with regard to superfast access and new-build developments. I know, in your previous response to my colleague Russell George, you said you expect them to have to address this. I know that many residents, when they move into new developments—perhaps myself included—expect that they will be able to access fibre broadband and then find that they can’t, despite developers being able to get connection for places with developments of over 30 or more houses. I’m aware that the reasons behind this can vary, with larger developments being built in phases or the developers not informing Openreach ahead of the building work commencing. So, Minister, will there be steps to improve co-ordination between developers and Openreach, or the providers on this, because it is part of the consultation and, in addition—? Today, I think we acknowledge we’re at a point when access to superfast broadband is actually an essential utility now. Perhaps consideration could be given to an obligation that ensures that it should be part of the initial infrastructure in future for any future new-build developments.

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 that is quite clearly not something that anybody ever wants to do, and it’s gone from a positive to a really serious minus. So, we’ve been pressurising the UK Government for quite some time to put a universal service obligation in, but also to treat this as a utility, because a lot of the problems that people are having in accessing superfast broadband are because their properties are stuck behind a piece of land that we can’t get across, and BT is left trying to negotiate a wayleave, or whatever, across the land. Unlike a utility, they have no right to cross the land and then pay an appropriate amount. They have to actually negotiate it. So, it’s perfectly possible that somebody could actually block off a whole village by simply not letting them cross their land, and that’s clearly unacceptable in the modern age.

In terms of the new builds, the Member has been very assiduous in writing to me about a number of the problems in her constituency. We’ve been talking to colleague Cabinet Ministers about the various difficulties in planning law, and about what we can do through section 106 agreements to ensure that councils put obligations on builders, where they’re building more than a certain number of properties, to connect to the superfast network as part of the obligation on the builder when they build an estate. But, we don’t have any way of enforcing that, other than through those obligations. So, we’re in active consideration about how we can do that, and in terms of the actual build itself, of actually making sure that the house itself is capable of it.

One of the big problems we have with modern technology is that the more insulated a house is, the more like a Faraday cage it is, and the less penetrable it is by mobile phone signals and broadband signals and so on. So, it’s a little bit of a conundrum. It’s about if you’re going to have very high levels of insulation and eco-sustainability in your house—which I, for one, am very much part of—then you want to make sure that that house is wired, because the Wi-Fi signal isn’t going to go through that insulation terribly easily. So, it’s about trying to get those building regulations and planning regulations lined up. It’s also about pressurising the UK Government into getting the service obligation right, and into acknowledging that this is not a luxury at all—it is now an essential, the same as water, electricity and so on are for people. Indeed, I think that, for some young people, it is probably more of an essential than some of those other things. So, I would be very grateful, Hannah, if you could write to me with specific areas. If you could check the interactive map, then we can talk about particular solutions for some of the estates in your area. And, obviously, that goes for all Members as well who have the same problem.

Okay. Superfast questions from now on. [Laughter.] Darren Millar.

Thank you, Llywydd. Thank you for your statement. I am a little bit concerned, actually, at the number of properties—I hadn’t realised it was going to be quite so high—that were going to be outside the current scheme. Many of those properties, as you will know from our correspondence in the past, are in my constituency. Some of them are paying through the nose, frankly, for satellite broadband services, which are very, very expensive and pretty unreliable for those particular families. So, we are facing this digital disadvantage, and I’m very concerned about that. You have given this commitment to having a look at the ultrafast connectivity voucher system for businesses. I know that we’ve got the Access Broadband Cymru scheme as well, which also encourages the highest speed take-up. You haven’t said whether you’re considering looking again at how that operates and neither have you said whether you’re prepared to look at allowing people who were early beneficiaries of that scheme, perhaps five or six years ago, when the criteria were just to get up to 2 Mbps, and whether those people can now reapply under the new scheme in order to take advantage of the higher speeds that might be available. Perhaps you could just comment on that.

I noted also with interest your reference to the fact that some landowners have been obstructive. This is a regular excuse that I’m hearing from BT Openreach, but of course every time I ask them which landowners, they’re unable to tell me. It’s because, frankly, it is just an excuse in some cases from them, and there aren’t actually any obstructions at all from local landowners. In fact, when I’ve tried to nail them down on this in my own constituency, it’s been quite clear that there’s been no problem at all with landowners; they just haven’t bothered making sufficient effort to contact them or their land agents.

Just one final point as well: you mentioned the permitted development rights that many of the utilities companies already enjoy. Of course, the planning system is entirely devolved here in Wales. There’s no reason whatsoever why the Welsh Government couldn’t extend permitted development rights to telecoms operators. I hope very much that you will, in order that we can overcome some of these problems. This is something that should have happened many years ago, frankly, and we shouldn’t still be talking about these things today. What we need is some concerted action on this, if our constituents—people like mine in Moelfre and Llanarmon yn Ial and other places—are going to get access to these sorts of services, which frankly are basic services now, particularly for businesses, but not only businesses, for families too, in terms of their entertainment systems and the learning opportunities that the internet provides.

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 the local picture.

In terms of the voucher scheme, we’ve already adjusted the voucher schemes once, so you can already apply for a voucher if you can get a step change if you’ve already got 2 Mbps and so on. We will be looking at that again. I apologise profusely for my various problems, but I’m due to come and visit your constituency, so I’d be very glad to have a really good chat with you about exactly what it is. That’s exactly what we’re looking for for the second project—to look at specific problems that we might be able to solve in a particular way. The voucher system can be adapted to suit whatever it is, or indeed we can adapt a lot of this new contract to do that. There are a number of different ways that we can do it. The voucher scheme is there to assist people who want to go faster than the project and to get to the people whom it is just never going to be economic to get to. But I don’t think you’re talking about very many of those. So, we can have a good conversation about how to lot the next contract, which might be very specific to those.

In terms of the premises, I think I've already said that, and if you look at the interactive map, you'll see what I mean. First of all, we've had a lot of new build and other premises over the time. There's no doubt at all that GIS mapping systems have improved immeasurably since 2011—so, we've just got better maps of it. But there's also no doubt at all that some of the premises on there are not premises that you'd want to broadband enable, and I don't know what the difference is. As I said anecdotally, I've looked at my own patch, and there are quite clearly some anomalies. There will be others. There may be premises that are missing that should be on there but aren't on there. So, we are very reliant on the information back. It will only be as good as the information we get back. So, we’re relying on the GIS system at the moment, and that's not absolutely perfect. But there's no doubt at all that it's much better than it was in 2011, which does account for some of the difference. So, the new build, the difference in mapping techniques, and the fact that we've gone down to premises level, and not postcode level, is making the difference, really, on that.

And I think, in terms of the infrastructure bit—I know the Llywydd just said broadband questions—the difficulty is that it's starting to get very difficult to distinguish between telecoms and broadband, and, as the Gs go up, then obviously a lot of people access broadband via mobile phone. But I'm not talking about masts here; I'm talking about digging a cable under the ground, and that's different. It's not just the permitted—. You have to have a wayleave and you have to have permission to maintain it and so on. But we are talking with planning colleagues about changes. I've had a mobile phone forum to discuss exactly this, and we'll be announcing a mobile phone plan very soon. It's beginning to be impossible to discuss the two separately, even though mobile is not devolved. So, you know, there are some complications there, but we are in the process of having exactly those discussions about planning. And, as I’ve said in this Chamber before, that will be a balance between getting the service to people and not covering our very beautiful countryside with a mast every 50 feet, which nobody wants.

Minister, I wanted to raise matters that I know you are aware of, because we've corresponded about them, and that is the issue of the AB company failure in the Goldcliff area in my constituency, because that failure has left residents without internet access, which, as we can all imagine, has created a great deal of problems and frustration for them. There is a temporary solution in terms of infrastructure being provided by AB together with British Telecom, but, as yet, there is no date for BT installing fibre, even though, for some time now, they have told local residents that that was imminent. But there is no date for the provision that would allow residents to access that fibre. So, that frustration is lingering and has been the case for quite some time.

The other very real frustration is that there is no internet service provider to take over AB Internet services on a permanent basis at the moment. As I say, I know you are aware of these issues, Minister, and I wonder if there's anything you can say today as to what the solutions will be.

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 to sell the company as a going concern onwards. But I don't have any more information than that.

Unfortunately, of course, you're not in the intervention area, so you’re reliant on the commercial roll-out, and that's very—. I mean, the irony of this is my whole constituency isn't in the intervention area, and I have people with no broadband services, but, where a commercial operator has said that they are going to provide service, then we can't go there because that would breach the state aid intervention rules. So, I can't do very much more than sympathise with the difficulty. I'm happy to work with the Member in talking to BT about their commercial roll-out and whether we can help with that, but I have no actual intervention power over it. If you’ve got any more information about the services provided by AB Internet, or indeed any other Member who's got AB Internet coverage in their patch—there are a number of others—if you could let me know, then at least we can ensure that there’s a temporary fix in place for some of those people.

I think the Minister knows I've kept her quite busy, as has my own caseworker who is designated now to broadband issues. I know that he's been keeping me on my toes and making sure that we really try to find out where those problems are and help to improve their connectivity. Now, clearly, you know, we'd welcome a successor project, but, you know, in your statement, you do say that it’s a footprint of circa 2,000 business premises across north and south Wales. I’m pleased with the connectivity offered to businesses at business parks, but, for me, of course, in Aberconwy, I’ve got a lot of rural areas. How are we going to address those solitary, isolated properties? Many of my constituents in the Valleys are farmers, and they are really struggling now with all the online payments, and all the online data that are required of them. They simply cannot function now in their own industry.

You talk about your programme for government, ‘Taking Wales Forward’—

I don’t think you need to re-read the Minister’s initial statement.

I’m not doing that.

Can you come to a question, please?

Forget it.

Minister, do you need to respond to anything?

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 have the contacts in your areas for all of your businesses, your local representative forums, the unions, and so on. Please get us that information back as soon as possible and we can take the project forward.

I thank the Minister