7. Will the Leader of the House make a statement on high-speed broadband provision in the Caerphilly constituency? OAQ51610

Yes. Under the Superfast Cymru project we've provided access to fast fibre broadband to 27,206 premises in Caerphilly. At the last time of data checking, the average download speed for premises deployed under Superfast Cymru is 64.4 Mbps in Caerphilly.

I'd like to thank the leader of the house for the heroic efforts in which she's engaged to get the broadband issue sorted in Castle Reach and Kingsmead estates in Caerphilly. She has worked incredibly hard and I'm very pleased to see that it's happened. But I wanted to—[Interruption.] Of course, contrary to what Russell George said earlier. I wanted to raise the issue of the delivery plan for 'Our Valleys, Our Future' and the fact that broadband isn't actually mentioned in the delivery plan, but it will be vital in connecting businesses across the Caerphilly constituency. I'm concerned that there's no specific mention, so would the leader of the house give assurances that she'll be working with Cabinet colleagues in order to deliver the 'Our Valleys, Our Future' plan and particularly ensure that those businesses that are based in and around industrial estates in the northern areas of the Valleys communities benefit from broadband provision?

Absolutely. It's not mentioned because it's just a fundamental part of the infrastructure. I'm a member of the Valleys taskforce board. We're working very closely together. A very large part of the economic plan for 'Our Valleys, Our Future' is based on that sort of infrastructure development, and I think it's actually part of where we're going with this, and it's just becoming part of the furniture. So, large parts of the Valleys communities are already well-served by the infrastructure. The big issue now is to get the services that run on the infrastructure up and running. So, it's not about the widgets; it's about the increased service provision that we can use the widgets for. So, the Valleys is very much part of using infrastructure appropriately now that it's in place. So, where it isn't in place, which is not very many parts of the Valleys, we will, of course, be looking at the successor projects to fill it in. So, the estates that the Member has mentioned, we will be looking very much to see that we get to industrial estates and other developments of that sort in the successor projects I mentioned earlier, and that will be very much part of the Valleys plan where they're in the Valleys, and, of course, part of the roll-out where they're not.

Thank you very much, leader of the house.