8. Will the Leader of the House make a statement on the progress of Superfast Cymru broadband roll-out in Pontypridd and Taff Ely? OAQ51396

Yes, 48,266 premises within Rhondda Cynon Taf can now access fast fibre broadband with an average download speed of over 64 Mbps, thanks to Superfast Cymru. That equates to around 95 per cent of eligible premises, and just over £13,144,000 of public funding has been invested in the project in Rhondda Cynon Taf.

Thank you for that answer, and also thank you for the fact that we've achieved 94 per cent coverage in Pontypridd. However, that 6 per cent non-coverage is really significant for a number of small businesses, and attempts to resolve it have been incredibly stubborn and difficult to resolve. I wondered what sort of steps are being taken and what priority can be given to ensure that the remaining 6 per cent actually becomes resolved.

That will be very much part of how we construct the successor project to Superfast Cymru, and I believe the Member has a number of specific issues in industrial estates, and he will have heard the answer I gave to Darren Millar earlier about some of the things we're doing for business in industrial estates. One of the industrial estates in the Member's area in Treforest has a number of servers. I had a meeting with BT only this morning, which is why I'm able to give the Member such a significant amount of detail suddenly. We understand that there's a bit of a problem about how the three overlap, so, with his permission, I will be asking BT to contact him direct to look at some of those issues. In terms of the 6 per cent generally in Wales, the whole point of the £80 million successor programme, superfast 2, will be to look at how we can address those people left out of the first programme and what's the best way of ensuring that we get the maximum coverage for our money.

I listened carefully to your answer, leader of the house, and congratulations on your appointment. Across the whole of the South Wales Central area, of which obviously Pontypridd is one of the key towns, there are these pockets of difficulty, shall we say, identified in Pontypridd at 6 per cent, but that could be anywhere across the South Wales Central region. I hear you've had an update meeting with BT, but it is increasingly really frustrating, as you can appreciate and I've heard you say time and time again, for the businesses and individuals that are in those pockets. What sort of timescale is the Welsh Government working on, along with BT, to try and have some of these solutions that you've alluded to in place so that that 6 per cent can be squeezed as tightly as possible down to a smaller percentage of the population that are unable to make those contacts? And, ultimately, what we'd all like to see is 100 per cent connectivity.

Yes, absolutely. So, we're designing the second stage now. We're going to go to procurement as early in the new year as we can manage it so that we have a back-to-back roll-out arrangement with BT as they ramp down from the first one. I'm not saying for one minute that BT will win the second phase, but clearly we want to have a programme that's as smooth as possible. One of the ways that we're looking to do that is to design very specific local solutions in local areas. So, solutions in urban south-east Wales will be very different from solutions in very rural or semi-rural areas in mid and north Wales, for example.

There are some complications in south-east Wales around where the intervention area is for superfast. The Member will appreciate that this is a state-aid intervention, so it's a market intervention, and, for every intervention, we have to prove that the market has failed. So, if it wasn't included in the open market review that we did in the summer for superfast 2, then we will experience some difficulty in including it.

If the Member's aware of anywhere that's experiencing  difficulty that's currently labelled as commercial, I'd be very grateful to hear about it so that we can incorporate that as soon as possible.

There will be a trade-off between getting as much speed to as many people as possible and getting true ultrafast speeds to some businesses that we can also discuss as part of the design of phase 2. In particular, the Member will have heard what I said to Darren Millar, his colleague, earlier around business connectivity. We've also employed a number of business exploitation experts for Superfast Cymru, and they're able to explain to businesses what their best commercial advantage might be. We have several examples across Wales of businesses that have waited patiently for superfast to get to them, and they've received superfast only to discover that it's nothing like adequate for what they need and they could have just upgraded with an ultrafast connectivity voucher years before if only they'd realised. So, we have a number of business experts who tour the country talking to businesses to make sure that that business understands what the connection they might actually want is, and assists them to get the best deal.

I've done a number of roadshows in various constituencies, and I'm more than happy to do one if the Member would like me to in his area. We can get the exploitation programme to do that as well. You can hear that I'm very anxious for businesses to understand what their best advantage is and not to wait for the programme only to discover that they could have upgraded, because we're very anxious that businesses in Wales get the full benefit of the internet, and all of the services and expansion and so on that that can bring, as early as possible. So, the business exploitation advisers are very good at making sure that businesses understand a business plan to get the right connectivity, and what they might get for their money in terms of money that they might contribute to it. So, I'd be very anxious to understand exactly what the detail of it is and to engage with the Member as much as possible.