6. Statement by the Leader of the House: Update on Digital Connectivity in Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:22 pm on 15 May 2018.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 6:22, 15 May 2018

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.