Mobile Phone Reception

Part of 2. Questions to the Leader of the House and Chief Whip (in respect of her policy responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 2:30 pm on 18 April 2018.

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Photo of Angela Burns Angela Burns Conservative 2:30, 18 April 2018

Leader of the house, I do appreciate the answer that you've just given to Simon Thomas, but, of course, the reality is that in great chunks of mid and west Wales, there are areas where people do not have access to either broadband or mobile. To be fair, I absolutely recognise your commitment to sorting this out, and I know that you've taken on literally probably almost 100 of my constituents to try to get resolutions.

However, 90 per cent of mobile reception sounds great, but, of course, it's not 90 per cent of one provider. And so, sometimes you can get a bit of this provider, but your provider doesn't work. So, for example, I've got a household where—I don't know if I should mention the providers—if they were on EE, they can get it literally just by their door, but that's it, nowhere else in their area. So, actually that's not the best provider for them to be on. I wonder if a way forward might be to put together a task and finish group to look specifically at how we can jigsaw-puzzle together in rural areas all of the communication methodologies to ensure that our citizens really are digitally enabled going forward, because it's vital for business and for homework, kids, the whole lot. We all need our digital fix.