Item 6 is a statement by the leader of the house: update on digital connectivity in Wales. I call on the leader of the house to make the statement—Julie James.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Today, I want to provide you with an update on the digital infrastructure aspects of my portfolio.

I will begin by focusing on broadband. The delivery phase of Superfast Cymru closed in February, and, since then, we've been working to resolve three outstanding issues. Firstly, we have been considering whether the Welsh Government can work with BT to complete structures part-deployed by BT during the Superfast Cymru delivery phase. Such structures have caused frustration for consumers reporting that they can see fibre coiled on poles, yet they have seemingly no realistic prospect of receiving a fibre service. We expect to conclude this process at the end of May. Secondly, we have been revisiting with BT all of the claim packs submitted by them over the past five years to cleanse the data and confirm the final premises given access to 30 Mbps services as a result of our market intervention. While I am not in a position to confirm the figure today, I can confirm that, in fulfilling its obligations under the grant agreement, BT has delivered a significantly larger volume of premises than either party anticipated at the outset of this project. Finally, we have been establishing the processes and resources required to support the complex defrayment exercise that will confirm the final eligible expenditure under the grant agreement. To date, we have paid BT £300 for every premises, however, the closure of the delivery phase means that we must now work together to balance the books and ensure that all expenditure is eligible and fully evidenced. This process will take several months to conclude, but it is essential to ensure that BT does not benefit from any oversubsidy.

While there continue to be frustrated consumers that cannot yet access the services they require, we must not lose sight of the considerable success that Superfast Cymru has had in delivering access to fast and reliable broadband to thousands of homes and businesses that would not have benefitted without our intervention. I have previously announced an investment of £80 million to reach as many remaining premises as possible. I anticipate that £62.5 million will fund the Superfast Cymru successor project. I can report that our preparations for the successor scheme are well advanced, with the tender exercise ongoing and expected to conclude in June. I aim to announce the successful bidders before the summer recess, with deployment work commencing as swiftly as possible after that. It's clear from other schemes across the UK that the premises remaining will be significantly more expensive to address than those connected during the Superfast Cymru delivery phase. The premises that remain unserved are generally more sparsely distributed and harder to reach. This is why we are investing an additional £31.5 million through the Wales infrastructure investment plan.

The digital landscape is ever evolving and that requires us to constantly look ahead to understand future needs of businesses and residents and whether our interventions continue to meet that need. Our sights are currently set on how we can support and stimulate a progression towards full fibre connectivity. I am pleased to report that the proportion of homes and businesses in the Superfast Cymru intervention area that can get a full fibre service is more than twice that of the UK as a whole. Achieving our 30 Mbps target persuaded BT to invest in significant volumes of fibre to the premises in some very rural parts of Wales. There is currently more fibre into the premises in Powys than anywhere else in BT's network, and the fibre-to-the-premises technology now being delivered across the UK by Openreach was first deployed in Wales. Similarly, we have have constructed the current procurement to favour full fibre services so that we can encourage even greater full fibre penetration where we are investing public funding. Despite a commitment to invest more than £90 million, I am convinced that even this level of funding will not reach all remaining premises. Doing that will require complementary interventions that can operate in parallel with this investment and offer solutions to those not captured by it.  We need to make sure that these complementary interventions address local need, reflect the local demand for services and align with our broader deployment. I hope to be in a position to flesh this out ahead of the summer recess.

Members will be aware that we have been reviewing our ultrafast connectivity voucher and Access Broadband Cymru schemes. I'm pleased to confirm that it's my intention to continue offering a voucher safety net for the foreseeable future. Work is ongoing to streamline the application processes to enhance the experience of those accessing the vouchers. Members will be aware that the UK Government launched a UK-wide gigabit voucher scheme last month. I'm therefore reviewing the ongoing relevance of our ultrafast connectivity voucher scheme to avoid duplication or confusion, and I will update Members further on this ahead of the summer recess. Finally, I am also planning to introduce a novel scheme that supports communities not reached by our latest procurement, but also where voucher support may not be the answer. This approach will not be firmed up until the current procurement has concluded and we have clarity on where the successful suppliers will reach.

Access to broadband is clearly an important issue. However, for businesses that have access, it is equally important to get the most out of it to increase productivity, efficiency and add value. You will have seen the announcement today on the Cardiff University digital maturity survey. This survey shows that the more digitally engaged a business is, the more likely it is to succeed. Our investment in superfast broadband infrastructure and in our business exploitation programme is helping businesses to understand, adopt and exploit the benefits of superfast broadband, increasing turnover, profitability and enabling SMEs to introduce more products and services. I am pleased to see that local public bodies are also championing improvement to digital infrastructure, building on the success of Superfast Cymru in their areas. My officials are working closely with the North Wales Economic Ambition Board, the Cardiff capital city region and the Swansea bay region city deal teams, to help them develop and deliver their digital infrastructure strategies to ensure that they complement the work that we are doing. We are working with local bodies across Wales as they develop bids to the UK Government local full fibre network programme, so that Wales can benefit from the funding available where this can deliver local and regional priorities and complement our national schemes.

With the majority of premises in Wales now able to access superfast broadband, we need to focus on ensuring that homes and businesses take up the service so that they can make the best use of the technology for the benefit of the economy and for society generally. Take-up across the Superfast Cymru intervention area now stands at around 42.5 per cent, which means we're ahead of where we expected to be, and on course to meet our 50 per cent target much earlier than anticipated. This is encouraging and frustrating in equal measures, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is encouraging because the rate of growth is greater than modelled, but it is frustrating because there clearly is room for improvement. It is worth remembering that the greater the take-up, then the greater funding pot available to help reach the have-nots. We are continuing with our campaign to raise awareness of the availability and benefits of superfast broadband with home users. The integrated campaign uses public relations, advertising, events and social media targeted at a regional level. Today, the team are in Llanfair PG, talking to local residents about superfast broadband availability. I would again urge all Members to do what they can to increase take-up in their constituencies.

While broadband continues to be the main focus for many communities and businesses, I also receive calls for improvement to mobile coverage. We are making steady progress in delivering the mobile action plan. The consultation on 'Planning Policy Wales' ends this week, and the proposed changes recognise the wider contribution that telecommunications make to the economy of Wales, and the role of local planning authorities in positively planning for telecommunications in their development plans. This will be followed very shortly by a consultation on new permitted developments rights, including changes to those for mobile phone infrastructure. We have also recently undertaken a call-for-evidence exercise, where we have asked the mobile industry to provide clear evidence on the tangible benefits that introducing a reduction on non-domestic rates for new mobile masts might bring. Officials are currently reviewing that evidence.

We continue to engage with Ofcom to discuss regulation of the mobile industry, and have recently responded to their consultation on coverage obligation for their auction of the 700 MHz spectrum band next year. On 5G, I have asked Innovation Point to advise, stimulate and co-ordinate activity on 5G in Wales, including identifying opportunities to secure funding from the UK Government test bed and trials challenge fund. Our work to improve digital infrastructure is vital to underpin our commitments in 'Taking Wales Forward', and we continue to make good progress. As I have outlined above, I will be able to provide a further comprehensive update ahead of the summer recess.

Leader of the house, can I thank you for your statement this afternoon? I have a number of questions, and I hope you'll be able to answer them specifically. If not, I may have an opportunity to ask you again tomorrow during questions.

You seem to suggest that Openreach have been more than successful in delivering on the terms of the original Superfast Cymru contract, but five months after the drop-dead date, can I ask why you are still unable to provide a definitive list of those premises that haven't received an upgrade? I'm struggling to find why it's so difficult to answer that question. Can you also confirm that Openreach have definitely met the obligations of their original contract, which states that a minimum of 90 per cent of all premises in the contract intervention area are capable of having access to broadband services at a minimum of 30 Mbps, and 95 per cent are able to receive 24 Mbps? Now, you have said in your statement that BT has delivered a significantly larger volume of premises than either party anticipated at the outset of the original project. So, I would struggle to understand why you can't answer that question.

Can I also ask how many premises the second phase will cover? A number of figures have been floated, and my understanding is that the open market review identified 88,000 premises that were considered white premises, and that an assessment of the so-called standard premises had not been included in that figure. So, I'd appreciate any clarification on that. And can I ask how many stranded premises did Openreach manage to complete during the two-month extension, and how many remain? Will these remaining stranded assets be transferred into the next project? You initially envisaged that the Welsh Government would be able to reinvest a predicted £37 million from gain share as a result of take-up of the Superfast Cymru project. You now refer to £31.5 million through the Wales infrastructure investment plan. Can I just ask—I'm not sure what the answer is—is this new money, or is it part of the previously announced £37 million? Can I ask what consideration also has the Government made to require new-build developments over a certain scale to have access to affordable Superfast broadband services without the need for public subsidy?

With regard to the mobile action plan, I think what you call steady progress is actually non-existent progress. I'm sorry to say this, leader of the house, but I really don't think that you've made progress on this. You announced the mobile action plan in January 2017—16 months ago—so what concrete measures can you point to in improving mobile coverage in Wales during that time? So, over the last 16 months, I would say you've done zero in terms of action in reforming existing planning laws, which are delaying and adding costs to enhancing coverage, particularly in rural areas, making Wales the most difficult part in the UK for mobile operators to build infrastructure. And once again, in your statement, you asked for mobile operators to provide yet more evidence. Well, the industry has repeatedly outlined the barriers and solutions that will be required, so why are we experiencing continuing delays? The Scottish Government and the UK Government in England—they've asked for that evidence a long time ago. They've received it from the operators, they've analysed it, they've accepted it, and they've acted on it. So, I am disappointed in this regard. We're falling behind the rest of the UK. And indeed, in England, reform of the planning system has already been enacted. So, do you therefore agree with me that removing the need to process applications from the planning system, via the permitted development rights regime—a principle that is fully accepted everywhere else in the UK—is essential as a matter of urgency? The industry has been clear that reducing the costs of infrastructure deployment is absolutely critical, and I would therefore question why further evidence is required. You have it, so just get on with it so Wales doesn't fall further behind.

I'll take some of those in reverse order, since they are fresh in my mind. I disagree entirely with Russell George's analysis of the situation with mobile there, at the end. As I've said many times, Deputy Presiding Officer, in this Chamber, the geographical problems in Wales are unlike anywhere else in the United Kingdom. We have to have a very large number of masts in order to get the sort of coverage, unless the mobile operators are a good deal more able to plan better and to share and to act, actually, with some civic responsibility for it. Nobody wants to see masts every 50 ft or so right across all of our national parks. [Interruption.] No, tall doesn't do it. They have to be line of sight. It doesn't get into every nook and cranny. The other issue we have made significant progress on, which I'm very pleased with, is the issue around geographical coverage. We've battled with Ofcom, we've battled with the UK Government, who see these products as luxury products, which we do not see them as. 

Actually, a lot of this would be solved if we had sensible conversations about, for example, the need to allow roaming in rural areas. It's quite obvious that it's possible to have a competitive attitude to this in areas of high population where a large number of mobile operators are in evidence, because obviously there are high volumes of customers there. But you know as well as I do that, in large parts of Wales, only one operator is present, and the idea that you say, 'Come to Wales as long as you're on this operator, Mr Tourist, because otherwise you can't get coverage in this area,' is clearly not one that is sustainable. It's obvious to me that the UK Government is going to have to review its view of this as a luxury product and allow roaming in rural and very rural areas, because there's never going to be a large coverage of several mobile operators in that area. As I say, this isn't devolved to us, more's the pity, and if it were, we would do a number of things that I would very much like to see, including treating it as infrastructure. But anyway, we have made significant progress in the planning consultation and we're about to consult specifically on permitted development rights in particular areas of Wales. But, as I say, it's right to have a balance between what the local communities want to see and the coverage that we all need and expect.

Turning to the specific details of the superfast programme, the contract has very specific obligations around postcodes in it and the number of premises identified in each postcode. It's obvious now that more premises have been covered in postcodes than was hitherto the case. That doesn't mean, though, that the grant attaches to all of those premises. There's a very complex calculation to be made about which premises that now are covered are actually covered by the grant agreement. So, it's quite a complex exercise.

We're also revisiting, as I said in my statement, all of the claims packages made over the last five years, and we're doing that partly as a result of my tour around Wales and meeting with various communities where it's been obvious to me that places we thought were connected have not actually been connected. There've been problems with the fibre—one of them was in your own meeting, actually, which identified one of those. So, we've gone back over the claims packages to ensure that we're not paying for something we haven't received and to make sure that all of the data is robust. I make no apology for that. I'm very pleased that that was highlighted as part of my ongoing tour of Wales, and that's a good thing, and we're going through that process. So, that's why it's slightly delayed, but I've always said it would be at the end of May, and, as we approach the end of May, we're still on target to be able to say that.

We're having a complicated conversation with BT around the connection of the stranded assets. There is a complex commercial negotiation—'negotiation' is the only word I can think of—going on about who should pay for them. So, BT have sunk an enormous amount of capital into the ground. They haven't got a penny from us for that, because they've over-bulked the programme. The conversation is: who should pay for the last bit of the connection? That's a complex commercial conversation that is ongoing, and, as soon as we've reached the end of it, I'm more than happy to report it here in the Chamber. But I make no apology for the fact that, obviously, what I want to get out of it is the maximum number of premises for the least cost. So, quite clearly, where we're coming from is we want as many of those assets connected as possible for as little part of the gain share as is humanly possible.

The figures in the gain share are £62.5 million we're allocating to the new procurements from the £80 million available. The rest is being kept back for the bespoke community arrangements that we've discussed at great length. I'm only saying 'ish' because it depends what the procurements come in at, but we've deliberately kept a pocket back in order to get those bespoke solutions for some of the communities, and the investment from the intermediate plan is additional.

I was quite struck by what you just said, leader of the house, in terms of your tour round Wales. I'm very grateful we've had a conversation as well about you and your officials coming down to some of our communities in Carmarthenshire that are facing the frustrations that will be shared by many people and many Members across this Parliament. I'm grateful for that, but I'm very struck by you saying that, actually, communities that you, Welsh Government, thought had been connected, you find by going to these public meetings aren't. That is, at a national scale, I suppose, a parallel experience to what individual constituents of ours have felt, haven't they? They've been given information by Openreach about dates of the provision of the service and, of course, then the goalposts shift ad infinitum. Is there going to be any financial penalty as a result of that? Do you share the anger that some of the constituents felt in the way that you've been misled, and then you come to those communities and you find that out, actually, and you understand how those people feel? I'd like to know a little bit about what the consequences are for Openreach, in terms of the way that they have, by their own admission actually, in front of the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee, communicated appallingly. I accused them of lying, and they weren't very happy with that. We can choose our own language for it, but, unfortunately, what you've said confirms the experience of many constituents.

In terms of the money that you referred to in your statement, you said that, of the £80 million, £62.5 million will be used to fund the Superfast Cymru successor project. Perhaps you could remind us what the other £17.5 million will be used for. What's the relationship of that money to the £31.5 million that you mentioned in the Wales infrastructure investment plan?

You mentioned full fibre. We've talked a little bit about this. To what extent, in the next wave of the UK Government's programme in this area, and the bidding process, do you see the potential for an all-Wales bid? There have been some localised and regionalised bids within Wales, but do you see some advantage of building a kind of digital fibre spine in the whole of Wales and connecting as many communities as possible at once?

I was quite interested in the comments that you made about Powys, et cetera, in terms of fibre to the premises. A year ago, in the last figures that I looked at, I think Kingston was at 50 per cent of fibre to the premises, probably because of their unique history of public ownership—Kingston Communications as was, or KCOM now. That allowed Hull City Council to build up its infrastructure. The Counsel General floated this possibility—it was in the Plaid Cymru manifesto—of a publicly owned telecommunications infrastructure and broadband company. Is this something that the Welsh Government is actively exploring?

There was quite a range there, so, again, I'll go backwards, and if I miss something out let me know. We are actively exploring that. There are some difficulties, because a large amount of the infrastructure that we've put in place has been done with European funding through a state-aid programme, and then having a company that interferes in the market, to use the parlance, on top of that is problematic to overcome. But, we have a team of officials working on how we can maximise the benefit of the public infrastructure that's there—it'd be through the public sector broadband aggregation, for example, so we have a pipe into every public building in Wales. That's not the Superfast Cymru programme; that's Government pipes into every building. What we can do to exploit that and what we can do to bring its benefits to communities, including things like community Wi-Fi schemes and so on, we're actively researching that at the moment. We're hopefully going to put some pilot schemes in operation very shortly around school communities and so on, so we're very much looking at that.

In terms of the UK full-fibre issue, that's very problematic for us, because our biggest problem still in Wales is getting it out to everybody—some kind of broadband out to everybody. Full fibre is about changing the copper network that's carrying the speeds into full fibre. So, in my home, for example, I don't get superfast speeds but I get high 20s, but that's because I'm on the end of a copper wire. The full-fibre scheme is to change those copper networks into full fibre. That would be great—we've got a lot of communities that are hovering around the 30-ish mark. It would be good for them, but it won't help the people who are not connected at all.

So, in terms of priority, I've got a real desire to get the people who aren't connected at all in first, although there's nothing to stop us having full fibre afterwards. And, of course, we're looking to see how best we can take advantage of the UK's money for full fibre, and we are looking to see whether an all-Wales bid might be more successful in phase 2. We've had some success for local authorities, as I know that Adam Price is aware, in the first stage, so we're very interested in seeing whether we might marshal a bid to do that, but it won't help the people who are not on the network already, which is something that's of some regret.

In terms of the communications, I couldn't agree with you more—the comms have been dreadful. I've had endless discussions with BT about why the comms are so bad. They hide behind semantics—they say that the letters say that things that are scheduled are never definitive and so on, but I myself have hung on the end of a three-month rolling programme for quite some time and I understand totally the frustration of that. I put my hands up to that. When we let this contract, that wasn't an issue, because nobody had it and everybody was delighted when it came. Vast numbers of people were being connected. It became a big issue towards the end of the contract because of the way that the contract was structured, which is that we didn't specify any premises in Wales. BT had to get to 690,000 premises, which, in 2011, was 96 per cent of the premises in Wales; it no longer is. So, I accept that the comms are bad.

That's a different issue to the issue I talked about where we've discovered that some communities' fibre isn't properly connected. So, that's not about the communication with them; that's about the way that the claim has been processed and what we've tested. Some communities in the Presiding Officer's community, actually, and in a couple of others, have said to us, 'Well, I should be able to order fibre.' We've said, 'Yes, we should be able to order fibre.' When we've investigated, it's not been possible for various very complicated engineering connectivity issues back down at the tetrabyte hubs, and so on. So, it's a different issue, but it results in the same frustration for people who are being told one thing and it's not true. But it means we've revisited all the claims, just to be absolutely certain that we're not paying for something that we haven't actually got, and that's ongoing, which is why we're still in that process. I suppose it has the same result for the citizen—the frustration—but it's a very different cause from our point of view.

And then, in terms of the money, the three procurements have been put out to procurement in the ordinary way, and we specified particular areas that we want to—. So, we're prioritising people with very poor mobile coverage, no 4G and very bad broadband in one of them. We're specifying business premises in others, and the three lots have gone out in a very standard procurement way. We're waiting for the responses back to see how many premises will be covered, at what cost, and so on. But we've deliberately kept a pot back to look at bespoke community solutions, because a number of communities have come forward and said, 'We would like to do something very bespoke here with this small company. A group of us have a solution', and we want to be able to fund that, so we've kept a pot back for that.

The moneys are fluid. I'm casting these figures around but this is the gain share, Deputy Presiding Officer, so obviously it's moving. So, the more people buy it, the more money comes in, and we've pledged to put that money in. So, it's a fluid amount of money because it gets bigger. As more percentages join, more money gets spent on it. So, I'm saying 'about' for that reason, but it's about three quarters of it, and a quarter we've kept back. We want to see what community projects come forward and what they look like, and, as I also said, we're committed now to reviewing the ultrafast—the business voucher—because of what the UK has just done, because we want to make sure that we're ahead of that curve as well. They've just announced the gigabit fund, so we want to be ahead of that. So, we will review it in that light.

But it's a very complex grant agreement with BT, and we're very keen that they don't get any money that they're not entitled to and that we get as many connectivity outcomes from it as is humanly possible.    

I'm afraid my analysis of the situation may not be in accord with my Chair of the committee, so I hope he will take it in good part. Can I thank the leader of the house for her statement today, updating the Chamber on digital connectivity in Wales? Firstly, I would like to congratulate the Welsh Government on the excellent progress made so far through their Superfast Cymru programme, especially given Wales's topography and population distribution. We all acknowledge the challenges this brought to the implementation of the Government's ambitions.

Since the summer of 2013, Superfast Cymru, in partnership with BT, rolled out plans to provide superfast broadband to 655,000 premises, with the demand significantly increasing in the following years. The pledge to provide access to a further 40,000 properties in 2014 certainly enlarged Superfast Cymru's target. We must all recognise that managing the ever-changing demand for access speeds of 30 Mbps or more is certainly an unenviable task, particularly in some of Wales's most remote communities.

I do believe, however, that the Welsh Government must set targets that are ambitious but achievable, because access to superfast broadband has swiftly become a fundamental necessity of day-to-day life in the twenty-first century. It is frustrating enough for households who lack sufficient access, but for small businesses desperately trying to modernise and succeed in rural Wales, access to superfast broadband can often be the difference between success and failure. The UK Government's own minimum acceptable download level is 10 Mbps, but still many people in rural Wales suffer average speeds of less than half that. For instance, it was reported last year that in Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, Montgomeryshire, Ceredigion and Dwyfor Meirionnydd, over 50 per cent of broadband connections were slower than 10 Mbps. Could the First Minister update us on whether this is still the case?

Following on from some comments made by Adam Price, I would like to ask the leader of the house what measures has the Welsh Government put in place to ensure a greater level of communication with those communities that are still failing to receive satisfactory broadband access speeds. Is there still some confusion with regard to whether connectivity has been achieved or not, as in the case of Llangenny village in Brecon and Radnorshire, which formed the basis of a petition to the Petitions Committee? Is the First Minister satisfied that these issues have been addressed?

I note that Access Broadband Cymru has played a vital role to provide broadband to communities that have failed to receive sufficient access and I therefore welcome the announcement in today's statement that the scheme, along with the ultrafast connectivity scheme, will continue for the foreseeable future. We look forward to hearing from the Minister—sorry, from the First Minister—whether the plans and the partnership that he envisages will bring superfast coverage to the remaining 4 per cent in Wales.

Turning to another vital component in the communications roll-out, I welcome the fact that the Welsh Government appear to be heeding the recommendations of the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee's report on digital infrastructure in Wales by undertaking a call-for-evidence exercise on the benefits of introducing non-domestic rates relief for new mobile masts.

Finally, does the leader of the house not agree with me that the Government must use whatever leverage it has to encourage mobile operating companies to share their infrastructure in order to provide improved mobile coverage in the many black spot areas?

The Llywydd took the Chair.

I'd just like to point out I'm not the First Minister. I do sometimes stand in for the First Minister, but on this occasion I'm just being myself. [Interruption.] No worries. It was just causing other Members to grin, I think. 

So, a number of issues there. The way that the original scheme worked was that we didn't specify any premises at all and BT just had all the premises in Wales to chose from and obviously they went to the ones that were the cheapest and the fastest and the closest together because that's their best commercial advantage. However, I just want to put to bed once and for all the myth that this is not a rural scheme. This is a market intervention: we are not allowed to go with it where any commercial operator goes and therefore there is no Superfast Cymru in any city or conurbation or large development because obviously that's where the commercial roll-out has happened. So, in my own constituency there's no Superfast Cymru, and I can assure you I have people who haven't got broadband, but I'm not able to go there and intervene on their behalf, which is a frustration.

But we have learnt from some of the issues that we had around comms, as I've said in response to a number of Members around the Chamber. In the new schemes that we're putting out, once the proposals come back, we have asked for specific premises. So, the new procurements will be on the basis of specific premises and specific costs and we will be able to tell people immediately whether they're in or out, and the ones who are out, we'll be able to work with proactively to get them involved in the community schemes and the voucher schemes, and the ones who are in, we'll be able to keep them informed on a personal basis about where they are and any engineering problems et cetera, et cetera that arise. So, we've learnt the lesson of the comms and I like to think that, going forward, we won't have that problem. 

We do know within most parameters who is connected and there is an interactive map on the Welsh Government site that tells you if you're a white premises or not. There are small tweaks with that, as I said. As I go around the country, we've found some issues with it, but they're very small. So, by and large, the map is accurate. I would urge Members who do find an inaccuracy on the map to tell me about it because we are working very hard to make sure that that's as accurate as it's possible to make it. 

We did include nearly 2,000 additional business premises through the Airband contract as well, so that's an additional contract we've put in specifically to cover off business premises, because in the initial open market review, a lot of business premises were covered by the commercial companies and then it became increasingly obvious that they weren't going to be covered. So, we did put an additional contract in for that specifically, and that contract is now complete and running.

Lastly, in terms of the shared infrastructure and mobile masts, as I said in response to Russell George, my frustration is that it seems obvious to me that we are not going to have a full commercial market in rural parts of Wales. We'll be lucky if we get a single operator. So, the idea that we don't allow roaming, never mind shared infrastructure, is a matter of huge frustration to me. I just don't see how you can run a tourist business by saying, 'Come to Wales, as long as you're connected to this one operator.' I mean, clearly, that doesn't work. If you have a continental SIM—if you're lucky enough to have one of those—it happily roams around and finds you the operator, so I continue to press Ofcom and the UK Government very forcibly to allow that in rural and very rural parts, where there clearly isn't competition for those services.

I'd like to start by thanking the leader of the house for bringing forward this very important statement today. She will know that this is an important issue for my constituents in Alyn and Deeside and that I have previously raised the issues relating to digital connectivity within this Chamber.

Clearly, getting digital connectivity right is important if Wales and the UK are going to be the global technology leader of the future. I have two points that I'd like to ask the leader of the house about. Firstly, does she agree with me that improving our digital connectivity is vital if we're going to make the best of the developments in smart technology, from driverless cars to autonomous drones and environmental monitoring devices? We need to improve, and we need to do it quickly.

Secondly, does she agree with me that we need to be truly radical on ideas surrounding this issue and build gigabit cities and hubs? For example, Flintshire and Wrexham could link together to become one gigabit hub, and through the design and deployment of this type of future proof, full-fibre infrastructure, we could help bring many of the benefits you've mentioned throughout your statement, including unlimited bandwidth and gigabit-speed connectivity, to entire communities, both urban and rural. Every gigabit city and hub we build would provide local businesses, government, health and education sectors with state-of-the-art facilities and digital infrastructure capable of meeting their data, connectivity and communication needs for decades to come.

We should strive for Wales and the UK to be the global leader of this technology and innovation. The world is already going through a technological revolution, and if we fail to grasp these opportunities that we have in Wales we will regret it.

I couldn't agree with you more, Jack Sargeant; you make a series of very, very good points. Quite clearly, one of the reasons we've invested so many millions of pounds in the roll-out of broadband is because connectivity is absolutely essential. The idea that we continue to treat it in the UK as a luxury product and not an infrastructure is increasingly unsustainable in the modern world, and we really are driven to address that, would that we had the devolved power to do so. But it's clearly increasingly a difficulty because it isn't a luxury. People are actually socially isolated without it and disconnected from global networks and so on. 

So, I very much welcome a meeting with you and any other Member who wants to discuss how we can take that forward. We have just announced a digital taskforce on the economy side of it, but there is a whole pile of other things that we could do in terms of some of our public investment. I talked earlier to Adam Price about some of the issues with the public sector broadband aggregation and what we can do with that. There are lots of opportunities there in areas such as Alyn and Deeside to use the public connectivity of all of the offices for public good and for social good and for economic action. We do have some technical issues to overcome, but I'd welcome a continued conversation on that.

Of course, we have the fibre-speed connectivity network in north Wales as well, and there are some real issues with how we can make sure that people can access some of the advantages that that brings. We've got the full-fibre connectivity issue that I talked about. The British Government is putting out calls for action for full fibre, and there's been a successful bid in the north-east—I get my easts and my wests mixed up—which we are very pleased to see. So, we'll be looking to see what we can do with that. As I said to Adam Price, we'll be looking to see whether we can do an all-Wales bid to match that in the future, although I am very concerned that we're not leaving behind people who are not connected at all while we full-fibre everyone else.

I've also appointed Innovation Point to advise, stimulate and co-ordinate activity on 5G in Wales, as I said. And, as I said in my statement, I'm very concerned that the UK Government does the 700 MHz spectrum sale properly and we don't have the land banking that we've seen with the 4G spectrum, so, basically, we want them to put in a 'use it or lose it' category for that because in large parts of Wales, for example, 4G is not being used by the operators who bought it, and it's very frustrating to us that we can't get it back off them in the way exactly that we were talking about vacant land tax, actually: you've got an asset, and you're sitting on it, and we want to use it for public good.

So, I very much welcome a conversation about how we might take that forward and, actually, with colleagues on the Conservative benches, on what you might bring to bear by way of influence with the current UK Government, because I do think it's a real issue for rural Wales here that isn't seen by people who live in the south-east bubble at all—that this kind of connectivity is very unlikely to be done by a competition-type thing in very rural Wales, and a different solution is necessary. So, we do need to work together very hard to do that, but we're very keen to work together with all of the current city deals, the North Wales Economic Ambition Board and local bodies across Wales to make sure that we do take advantage of the UK Government's programmes for full-fibre networks, and the gigabit hubs will absolutely be an essential part of that, because unless we ride that wave, then we're going to be engulfed by it. So, I very much welcome your input on this.

We're running out of time on this statement, so if we can have short questions and answers, I'll try and call the three remaining speakers. Janet Finch-Saunders. 

Diolch, Llywydd, and thank you again. Just to reiterate, really, you've been extremely helpful and co-operative to concerns I've raised with you, and I think it's fair to say I've raised plenty. But just taking you back quickly to the meeting that you came to where we had over 100 people very concerned in the room, and one of the big things that came through was the issues with BT themselves, in terms of their communications with our constituents and then them having to ultimately come to me. One of the constituents asked, and was supported by the whole room, as to going forward—and I know it's a difficult one for you—but going forward with the tender processes. If there's this feeling, the lack of confidence in BT itself, how will this impact on (a) you going forward in terms of having confidence in dealing with them again? But my bigger concern is in your statement today where you mention: 

'To date, we have paid BT £300 for every premises, however, the closure of the delivery phase means that we must now work together to balance the books'.

And when it says 'work together', who with? And:

'ensure that all expenditure is eligible and fully evidenced. This process will take several months to conclude, but it is essential to ensure that BT does not benefit from any oversubsidy.'

That, to me, is a little bit vague, and in terms of audit processes, I just wonder how you can actually just give us a little bit more confidence that there will be a rigorous look at this, because I know, in my constituency, you were probably surprised by how many people themselves believed they were getting it—they were told they were getting it, they still haven't got it, and yet they are actually in this current roll-out phase.

So, there are still a lot of questions to be asked about BT's part in this, and I think you've probably taken a lot of flak over the past few months for something that's not actually been your fault, but it's what influence and what power you have as a Cabinet Secretary, as the Welsh Government, against BT, because I think they're well aware of my concerns, because I had them at the meeting as well.

The Member makes the points that many Members make all the time about the comms issue, and I won't rehearse it, Llywydd; we've been through it many times before, but we have learnt that lesson. So, going forward, it will be a condition of the new contracts, for whoever wins them, that the communication is direct with—. We will have named premises in those contracts; we won't have the fishing pond effect that we have this time. We will know who's in the contract and who isn't, and we'll be able to put a comms policy in place, because we have learnt that lesson very much. Indeed, I have taken a lot of flak on that subject from around Wales, I think it's fair to say.

In terms of the grant claims, we would always go through a vigorous process at the end of any contract. It has severe financial penalties in it, so it's in our interest and the contractors' interest to make sure that we're both on the same page about what's being claimed, why it's being either agreed or not agreed, and what the processes for that are. And, obviously, they claim it, we say 'no', they say 'yes', we go back and forth quite a few times, and now we're going through the whole contract again at the end to make sure that we're all clear exactly on what basis we've paid for which claim, why, and why we've said 'no' or 'yes' and so on.

So, that's the process. I'm very happy that it's very vigorous. It has been informed by my tour of Wales, where some people, I think, even in the Llywydd's constituency the other day, we thought were connected were saying that they weren't. So, we've put our teams back out onto the ground to check, verify those claims once more and to just test the whole process one more time. So, I'm very pleased about that, and, as I said, there are complex issues in the grant agreement around the numbers of premises that could be claimed in each postcode, but it's now obvious that they've connected far more premises in many of those postcodes than we anticipated, or indeed, than they'll be paid for under the grant agreement, so that's a good thing, but we're still very keen that they don't get subsidy for things that weren't in the original contract.

Thank you, leader of the house, for your statement. For my questions today, I’d like to link some of the points in your statement back to 'Our Valleys, Our Future'. As you know, that document sets out an ambition to develop a digital vision for the Valleys, which centers on working with communities to identify how technology can be used to deliver better outcomes for people living and working there. Can the leader of the house update us on progress towards achieving this? Specifically, what interventions, in terms of both digital connectivity and digital infrastructure, will be needed to drive this forward?

Secondly, another action from the Valleys taskforce was to support the creation of digital jobs in the Valleys. This could be crucial in driving their future economic prosperity, but again requires that the digital infrastructure is capable of meeting expectations. How is the leader of the house building this into her work?

I've listened to two excellent questions. We had a very good meeting of the Valleys taskforce in the Neath constituency, actually, very recently, where we went through, with the taskforce lead, exactly what's happening across the Valleys taskforce area. I think Lee Waters was present at that meeting. We came up with three very concrete actions, but I'm afraid I'm not going to pre-announce them, because my colleague Alun Davies would be very cross if I do, so you'll have to wait with bated breath for him to announce it to us. But, that piece of work has gone very well indeed, and we have some very creative and innovative ideas to share with the Valleys communities in some of the pilot areas and hubs, which I'm very delighted by. We will be helping the SMEs in that area to take advantage of some of the data-driven possibilities that have come forward, because we've done a big exercise in what public data is available and what can be shared in the Valleys communities as well. So, it's not just about the connectivity, it's about what can be done with the data that then travel over those networks.

We've also mapped the entire area for the best connectivity and we mapped those to the hubs that we've spoken about. My colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport has just announced a cross-Government digital taskforce that will be looking to see what we can do to best grasp the economic benefits of that, and a number of you, I know, have been involved in discussing that with him, me and with Alun. We've been working right across the Government. My colleague the Cabinet Secretary for rural affairs and myself have had great long conversations about precision agriculture and some of the benefits that can be brought, through connectivity, for our farming industries as well. Many of our Valleys communities are in those categories, so a lot can be done with that, and I think we'll be very well placed as a result of our work, both on the connectivity—the hard stuff—but actually, more importantly, the skills and soft stuff that goes with it, to make sure that our Valleys communities really get the boost they deserve as a result of the expenditure that we've put into this.

Finally, Lee Waters.

Diolch, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, I'll keep my comments brief. I acknowledge what you're saying about not losing sight of the considerable success in the scheme, but inevitably, it's the sore thumb that gets attention. You said that work is ongoing to streamline the voucher scheme. I just want to raise with you the case of my constituents in Bynea in Llanelli, who've been very frustrated that Openreach would not install fibre optic broadband and each of them have to apply for an Access Broadband Cymru voucher to enable them to commission an independent supplier. They've now been waiting 11 weeks. They have speeds of 0.04 to 0.6 Mbps, and understandably, they are very frustrated. So, I wonder if you could offer them any comfort.

I can indeed. If you want to write and give me the details of contacts for them, we have a business exploitation team whose expertise is in bringing communities together in order to exploit the voucher with some dispatch. And we've got a team who are very good indeed at getting the best out of that system. And before they go and spend their money on the voucher scheme, we'd also have a very good idea of what was coming down the line in terms of the new procurements and so on. So if you give me the detail on that, I'm more than happy to put that team in touch.

Llywydd, I've made that offer at all of the meetings that I've done in public around Wales, so I'll just make it openly in the Chamber. If Members are aware of a group of people who want to come together to use the voucher scheme in any innovative way, or if they have any other innovative solution they want to bring forward, if you want to draw their details to my attention, we have a team of people whose purpose it is to go out and assist that to happen. So, if you want to let me know, we can certainly speed that up.

Thank you to the leader of the house.