6. Will the Leader of the House provide an update on broadband coverage in Newport East? OAQ52711

Yes. Although we don't hold information specifically for Newport East, under the Superfast Cymru project we provided access to fast fibre broadband to over 14,000 premises across all parts of Newport, delivering average speeds of over 75 Mbps and investing £2.9 million.  

Thank you for that, leader of the house. As you know, phase 1 of Superfast Cymru did not reach the villages of Langstone, Llanvaches, Bishton and Goldcliff in Newport East, and I'm very grateful a meeting took place with one of your officials and others to discuss the issues. Phase 2 is eagerly awaited by local residents in those villages and I wonder if—an announcement next week, I know, but I wonder if there's anything you can say at this stage in terms of the issues that those residents face.

I haven't got any specific information, unfortunately, that I can give you. It has to await the outcome of the tendering process. But I will just repeat, because it's worth repeating, that we will know who is and isn't in the contract. If you aren't in the contract, then we will have a pot of money specifically designed to help villages or communities of people come together and get a solution. There are a large number of extremely successful projects right around Wales where people are getting gigabit speed, for example. So, I have a group of officials whose sole responsibility it is to facilitate that. I know they've met with the villagers that you mentioned, John Griffiths, and they'll be very happy to facilitate that should that not be part of the programme. I'm not in a position to say one way or the other, I'm afraid, at the moment.

Cabinet Secretary, according to the Ofcom's 'Connected Nations' report for Wales, the area that has seen the greatest improvement is Newport, where superfast broadband coverage has now reached 96 per cent. However, rural coverage in Wales is only 66 per cent. What plans does the leader have to increase the coverage of superfast broadband in the hard-to-reach or notspot areas to raise south-east Wales to the level enjoyed by Newport, to ensure that the whole region benefits from the prospects of economic growth?

Well, that's entirely the whole point of Superfast Cymru—to do exactly that, Mohammad Asghar. As you know, it's an intervention in the market. Without Superfast Cymru, most areas of Wales would never have got any broadband at all. Unfortunately, we are not able to roll it out as infrastructure. We require consent from the UK Government to implement state aid provisions, so it does rather hamper us. I think the figures you refer to are slightly old. The last phase of superfast drove the 66 per cent up very considerably. The least good across Wales is now 83 per cent, in fact. But, overall, we have about 90,000 premises in Wales not served.

Deputy Presiding Officer, when I make the announcements about the contracts next week, we will know how many will be covered with that, and, as I say, we have specific programmes, then, to target the rest of the communities.