3. Will the Leader of the House provide an update on broadband provision in Swansea East? OAQ51788

Certainly. Although not holding information specifically for Swansea East, under the Superfast Cymru project we have provided access to fast fibre broadband to 24,093 premises across all parts of Swansea, equating to just over 98 per cent completion. The average download speed across Swansea is currently 82.81 Mbps. 

And what is the upload speed? 

There's a big issue with upload speeds depending on what kind of technology you use to connect it and they depend on a number of other factors. So, customers on a fibre-to-the-cabinet connection can expect download speeds of a maximum of about 80 Mbps and upload speeds of around 20 Mbps. But it's dependent on distance from the cabinet, the package the customer buys from their internet service provider and what's called 'contention' on the network, which just means how busy it is. However, customers on a fibre-to-the-premises connection can expect download speeds of around 330 Mbps and upload speeds of around 30 Mbps, and that's dependent on the package that the customer buys as well, but it's not dependent on distance and FTTP is not subject to contention. So, we have the biggest fibre penetration in the UK at the moment, across parts of Wales, because people on a full fibre connection clearly don't have that problem. There is definitely an upload speed problem on copper networks and especially as you go into the fade-out area, and one of the things that's really interesting in Swansea is the BT test for a new way of sending a signal down copper wires in Swansea, called the G.fast test. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the outcome of that will be shortly, to see whether it has an effect that we can roll out elsewhere in Wales.

In response to a question that I asked the economy Secretary last year about broadband provision near rail lines, he said that he recognised the importance of Wi-Fi on rail services in Wales and mentioned that Arriva Trains Wales was doing work to improve that at the time. While you know that constituents will enter Swansea train station in Swansea West, it takes them just a matter of seconds, as Mike Hedges will agree, to be in Swansea East and they're already complaining about how fickle the Wi-Fi connection is. Have you spoken to the economy Secretary at all about how we can improve Wi-Fi services on trains? I appreciate that trains aren't your responsibility, but Wi-Fi is, so there's obviously some work to be done together there?

Indeed, and his officials attend my ministerial data and digital group, which as I said, met only this morning. One of the topics of conversation was that we're putting in place a new transport data arrangement, as part of the way the officials work, to consider how we might best improve some of the connectivity issues. So, you will know that Arriva Trains Wales has just put Wi-Fi on all of its rolling stock and the rolling stock will transfer when the franchise happens. But Great Western—we've been unable to secure that, although there's a conversation going on. We are, however, looking to see whether an agreement with Network Rail might be productive in terms of using some of the network itself as infrastructure, and, indeed, we're also looking at noding the roads and so on in order to improve some of it. So, I have a very intensive and ongoing conversation with the Cabinet Secretary and his officials about how we can best use the infrastructure that's available to us in order to increase exactly that sort of provision.

Leader of the house, you say that the take-up rate for superfast broadband has remained much lower than the actual availability of superfast broadband. So, could I ask what you as a Government are doing to ensure that people are aware of the availability of superfast broadband in their area?

Yes, we've just increased the amount of money that we currently spend on advertising the availability of broadband. We've just procured an advertising agency to go out on a two-county basis at a time—a rolling programme of advertising the availability of superfast in order to increase take-up.

I will say, though, that this is an enormous cultural change. We've all forgotten how fast this change has happened really. So, when this programme was first put in place, BT themselves estimated that about 21 per cent of the population would take up broadband. That's why the gain share is set at 21 per cent. They didn't expect to share any profit with us. It's currently running at just over 50 per cent. That's why we've got so much money to invest in the next stage. But, obviously, the faster that that climbs, the better. It's got quite a timetable on it, so we keep getting that gain share over several years in the future. So, I would encourage all of us to encourage as many people as possible to get online.