I do think that, as we look at this policy area—it does make you feel particularly depressed, because this was the technology that had the potential for us to undo the disbenefits of being geographically peripheral, or being located in a rural location. It was this technology that was supposed to provide the solution for rural business, but, because of the lack of progress that’s taken place, we are still in a disadvantaged situation compared to the main centres of urban population in England, and so on and so forth. Therefore, we must have better leadership from the Welsh Government. The system that we have, or the policy approach that we have, clearly isn’t delivering. So, never think that—. Of course, the technology is moving forward constantly, and we will soon be talking about terabits. If the Welsh Government truly wants Wales to be a test bed for driverless car technologies, for example, then we must move further ahead. So, it’s not through having an agreement on a contract with BT—that’s not the best way of doing that, I would suggest.

If we look at the figures, we heard the Cabinet Secretary saying that Wales is forging ahead. What planet is he on? We can’t have a reasonable policy discussion if we don’t accept the reality of the situation. As the House of Commons Library has demonstrated, seven out of 10 of the council wards that have the slowest connections in Britain are in Wales, six of them in the Mid and West Wales region, and one of them, Llanfihangel Aberbythych, in my constituency. I saw that an FOI request was published last week by the Welsh Government—that is, the information was published by the Welsh Government—that demonstrates where we are in terms of the areas that have been connected under superfast. Ceredigion is only 68.9 per cent—these are your own figures, which were published last week. We know that the average across the UK is around 93 or 94 per cent—that’s for England—and it’s set to be 95 per cent by the end of this year and 98 per cent, according to the UK Government, by the end of this decade. But 68 per cent in Ceredigion—what impact does the Welsh Government think that has on the viability of the economy in those areas? We must look at an alternative model.

It’s interesting to see the alternative models that have succeeded, for example, in the United States, where hundreds of cities own their own telecommunications companies. Because many of them, in areas such as Colorado and Kentucky, facing the same problems as our rural areas, have decided, 'Enough is enough. We are not going to rely on major, monopolistic companies. We’re going to take the reins ourselves.' Some of them partner with smaller, local or regional companies. Some of them own their own companies, very similar to the old Kingston Communications in Hull, of course, which was very successful, and very similar to what the Basque Government did back in the 1990s, having faced the same difficulties. Again, the Basque Country Government decided, 'Well, rather than just handing out this money to a large, private sector monopoly, why don’t we invest our funds into our own company?’ Of course, Euskaltel has proved that that investment was a wise move, and it’s paid off, because they have been able to make progress. And one of the committee's recommendations, of course, is that the Welsh Government should look at these alternative models at all levels.

There was a suggestion in the Western Mail last month that there was an opportunity in terms of this terabit infrastructure to generate investment that would mean that Wales, for once, would be in the vanguard.