Part of 2. Questions to the Leader of the House – in the Senedd at 2:52 pm on 16 May 2018.
Right, well, I'll reiterate it, because I thought I had answered it very clearly. I have not seen any concrete evidence of why the business case is that they can't share masts, that they need to build their own separate infrastructure, and that that infrastructure is not viable without non-domestic rate relief. So, I have not yet seen that evidence, although we've asked for it many times. We are out to consultation. We've had the research; we are out to consultation on the back of that research. That consultation finishes in June, and we're about to start the permitted development rights. So, I think that is the answer that you've asked for. It might not be the one you like, but that is the answer.
And the next answer on 5G—and I've said this many times in this Chamber—is that if we have the same situation as we have with 4G, where we have, effectively, landbanking, where you have one operator that owns 4G for Wales and if it doesn't think it's commercially viable, it simply doesn't roll it out, it is not acceptable. So, if they buy it and they haven't used it within a certain amount of time, we've asked the UK Government many times to put an axe on that to say, 'If you haven't used it in this specific area by then, give it back and let the public sector do it as a market intervention'. Now, that will reduce the amount of money that the spectrum is sold for, and that is a big issue because we don't think it should be used as a cash cow, and I'm afraid that's not what the UK Government thinks. So, we're having a big argument with them about that, which is a fundamental issue, because this is not a luxury product; it is an infrastructure. As long as we have that argument, we've got a real problem.