I'd like to move on to item 5, a statement by the Leader of the House and Chief Whip: broadband update. I call on the Leader of the House and Chief Whip, Julie James.

Thank you, acting Deputy Presiding Officer. Today I wanted to provide you with a further update on broadband across Wales.

Suzy Davies took the Chair.

The broadband market in Wales has seen rapid change over the last five years. Ninety-two per cent of premises in Wales can now access a superfast broadband service, compared to barely half five years ago. This transformation has been brought about by both private and public sector investment.

The private sector continues to invest in broadband services in Wales. Virgin Media are continuing to expand their footprint in south Wales and have expanded into the Wrexham area. Openreach has announced they intend to bring full fibre connectivity to 3 million premises across eight UK cities, including Cardiff, by 2020.

From the public sector perspective, Superfast Cymru has made a massive contribution by providing access to nearly 733,000 premises. It is not an understatement to say that Superfast Cymru has played a significant part in revolutionising the digital landscape in Wales. Both businesses and individuals are now enjoying the benefits that fast broadband brings.

We are supporting businesses to make the most of their connectivity through our Superfast Business Wales programme. It supports businesses across the whole of Wales to understand, adopt and exploit the digital business technologies that superfast infrastructure makes available. So far, the programme has helped over 3,000 businesses, provided 20,000 hours of support and held 550 workshops and events. For individuals, broadband helps them to learn, to stay in touch, to find jobs and to access entertainment.

As I have outlined in previous statements, however, there is more to do to reach the remaining premises that are not yet to be able to benefit from fast broadband. Given the scale of the task in providing fast reliable broadband to these premises currently unable to access it, we are going to need a range of interventions in future. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. We need to make sure that these interventions are complementary, address the remaining need for fast broadband and reflect local demand for services. 

There are three elements to our approach: individual support through our Access Broadband Cymru and ultrafast connectivity voucher schemes; support for communities through our voucher schemes and community-led interventions; and publicly funded roll-outs through the successor project to Superfast Cymru. The successor project to Superfast Cymru will form one part of the suite of interventions. And as I outlined in my previous statements ahead of the summer recess, we have been undertaking a tender exercise for the successor project to Superfast Cymru. This has been a very complex process.

The procurement for lots one, north Wales, and three, south-west Wales and the Valleys, is now complete. The successful bidder for both lots is BT. A grant agreement was signed yesterday. Under the grant agreement, BT will initially provide access to fast broadband to nearly 16,000 premises across both lots by March 2021, utilising just over £13 million of public funding. This funding will be met from contributions from the Welsh Government and from EU funding. Work on providing the underlying network to support the project will begin shortly. This work is vital in providing the backbone to connect the premises. The first premises are forecast to be connected by the end of 2019. The vast majority of these premises will be served by a fibre-to-the-premises connection, including all premises in lot three. The evaluation of tenders for lot two covering east Wales is ongoing, and I will make a further announcement on this as soon as the process has been completed.

In my previous statements I also outlined our work to review the ultrafast connectivity voucher scheme in light of the announcement by the UK Government of their national gigabit voucher project. Officials are working with their counterparts in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to explore how the schemes can be used to best effect to improve broadband connectivity for homes and businesses in Wales. They have explored a number of options and met again last week to finalise a proposal. I will provide you with a further update as soon as I am able.

I am committed to providing individual support to those premises unable to access fast broadband by continuing the Access Broadband Cymru scheme. We are working to streamline the application process to make it quicker and easier for individuals to apply to the scheme. For many, a community-based scheme is going to be the best route to fast broadband connectivity. As Members will be aware, we have already had successes in supporting community level interventions.

Villagers in Michaelston-y-Fedw used vouchers from our Access Broadband Cymru scheme to support their own community broadband initiative. They formed a community interest company to bring ultrafast fibre-to-the-premises broadband to residents and businesses. This has increased their broadband speeds from around 4 Mbps up to upload and download speeds of 1 Gbps. The community project employed contractors to do some of the work, while teams of volunteers have taken part in activities such as digging chambers, fibre splicing, laying out ducts and fitting out the village's communications hub. The village pub, community hall and church are already connected to the ultrafast broadband network, and work is under way to connect over 175 premises in total in the community. More premises are now choosing to join the project. 

This self-dig approach isn’t the only community model and we will work with communities and local authorities to provide advice and funding to bring fast broadband where it is needed. For example, officials have met with representatives from the B4RN project in north-west England to discuss how they could support communities in north Wales. Michaelston-y-Fedw is not the only community that is exploring community solutions. I attended a public meeting in Llanddewi Rhydderch in Monmouthshire recently and that community is also considering a scheme. Our officials are now working with them to explore the options available.

As I have highlighted in previous statements, we are developing a community intervention that will build on the ABC and ultrafast vouchers to make accessing funding for these types of schemes more straightforward. This work is dependent on the outcome of the tender exercise for the successor project to Superfast Cymru and, as outlined above, the review of the voucher schemes. As these other pieces of work come to an end, officials will be able to turn their attention to further developing the new scheme. In the meantime, communities will still be able to access funding from the voucher schemes.

Our work to improve digital infrastructure is vital to underpin our commitments in 'Taking Wales Forward' and to the economic action plan. I will continue to keep you informed as we develop and deliver our integrated approach to fast broadband connectivity. Diolch.

I think, leader of the house, that there will be many people up and down Wales who will be delighted to now receive superfast broadband over these next few years. I think in that regard you should be congratulated. It makes a massive difference to people's lives. I think the biggest disappointment to me in your statement today is that figure of 16,000 premises being just so low. In your statement today, you have talked about the 92 per cent of premises in Wales that now have access to superfast broadband service, and in the same sentence you talked about transformation as well. I do bring you back, as many on this side have previously, to 2011, of course. The Welsh Labour manifesto committed to, and I'm quoting here:

'ensure that all residential premises and all businesses in Wales will have access to Next Generation Broadband by 2015'.

So, there are big frustrations here. You might say you weren't in Government then, but you were on 3 March 2015 when you said, and I quote:

'Our aim to reach 96% of Welsh premises by the end of Spring 2016...with at least 40% of all the premises in the intervention area also benefitting from access to services in excess of 100Mbps.'

So, this hasn't happened. So, what I would ask is: what clawback mechanisms have been in place to reimburse the public purse for BT not meeting the coverage obligations, as I understand them? I've not seen the contract, but that is as I understand it. What was set in the original contract? Perhaps you can clarify the position on that. What has been the penalty, if I've understood that correctly?

I am intrigued to learn of the reasons behind the complexities that have delayed the awarding of phase 2 of the Superfast Cymru project. Are you in a position today to tell us? You have cited previously commercial confidentiality, but clearly two of those lots have now been awarded. I do think people will be expecting answers on why they've been left in the lurch in regard to the successor scheme. 

I have said previously many times that there should have been a seamless transition between phase 1 and phase 2 of the scheme, so that people were not left stranded with infrastructure hanging from poles outside their homes. I know we've had a difference of opinion on that. But that does bring me to my next question. What will happen to the stranded assets that Openreach has already invested in, but not completed because they ran out of time? Will these areas be guaranteed to be completed under phase 2?

How many bidders were there for lots 1 and 3? If there was only one bidder, how have you ensured that you have benchmarked the bid to ensure competitive value for money for the public purse? You say £13 million has been allocated to lots 1 and 3 for 16,000 premises, but the original amount that was allocated was £80 million. So, what's happened to the additional £67 million? Is that to be spent on lot 2? Clearly not. So, perhaps you can provide some clarification on that. Why is the evaluation of tenders for lot 2 still ongoing? I think there has been delay after delay after delay on this. We heard back in January and the summer about a delay again and now the people of east Wales will want some answers as to why there was a further delay again. 

My understanding is that the open market review was conducted before the end of phase 1 of the Superfast Cymru scheme. So, can you confirm that all those so-called stranded premises or white premises in lots 1 and 3 will be included in phase 2 of the project, and if not, how many premises in lots 1 and 3 will be left without superfast broadband at the end of phase 2? The original estimate was that there were 98,145 white premises in 15,763 postcodes. Does this mean that there are over 82,000 premises in lot 2, and if not, why has the Welsh Government gone out to tender on a scheme that doesn't include every premises in Wales, as per your original pledge?

Finally, will you also confirm that you have learned lessons from the mistakes of phase 1 and ensure that individual premises will be given guarantees as to whether or not they will be included in the successor scheme, rather than being based on a postcode system that allowed individual premises to be shifted in and out of scope?

Thank you for your statement today, leader of the house, I look forward to receiving further information on lot 2, and perhaps you can tell us when that information is likely to come about.

Thank you for that masterclass in some of the figures involved. I think, Russell George, you feel very much as I do that, perhaps, sometimes, you've been living and breathing this for quite some considerable time. Let me try to unpack some of the figures, because they're complex and again to do—as I say so often in this Chamber—with the fact that this is a state aid intervention programme grant aiding the eventual successful tenderers for the grant programme and not an infrastructure project. If it was an infrastructure project, it would be very much simpler, but it isn't.

So, as you know, at each stage, we have to make sure that we're not intervening in a market without the correct state aid cover, which we have to get through the Broadband Delivery UK process, and that puts an added complexity into it. In terms of the first contract, as I said, the actual coverage for that contract was that BT had to get to 690,000 premises across Wales at 30 Mbps or above. And at the time that that contract was let, that would have meant, alongside the private sector investment elsewhere in Wales, that 96 per cent of the premises that then existed would have been covered. Obviously there have been premises built in the meantime. One of the frustrations of this project as, Russell George, you well know from your own constituency, is that new build is often not included because we have to go back out to an open market review each time to try to find out whether the new build is or isn't covered by one of the commercial operators before we can include it, and that adds an added complexity. And if you remember, in the first project, we added in 42,000 extra premises at one point, when we did a second open market review, because it became increasingly clear that some of the business estates were not going to be covered by the commercial roll-out, which is what had been claimed by the various operators in the first place. So, it's a hugely complex set of criteria that we have to go to, and would that I could just figure out which premises they were and then work out how much it would be to connect them. That would be an awful lot easier, but that, unfortunately, is not where we are.

The conversation with the bidders in the lots that are now let has very much centred around the lessons learned that you spoke about, and has very much been us driving them to say exactly which premises they will go to and in what timescale. And I am hoping that, within the next month, we will be able to release those details to Assembly Members so that they can contact people in their constituency and let them know where they are in the programme. And at this point, I want to say that, of course, the grant agreement—I did say this in my previous statement as well—is over three years. So, some people will be at the end of that three-year programme, and it may be that they aren't happy with that because three years is a long time to wait, and so that’s why I'm emphasising that the voucher schemes are still staying in place, and if those people want to come forward with a voucher scheme, we're very happy to facilitate that.

In terms of the £80 million, it is indeed all on the table. I'm actually rather disappointed that the tenderers in all three lots have not wanted to spend more of that money than they have indicated to us through the procurement process, and I fear that that’s because of the vigorousness with which we insisted that the first contract was carried out on target. And, as you know, many times in this Chamber, I highlighted the penalties that would happen if that target was not met. The target was met. They did make the premises target. It was, I think—I probably did it myself, and other Ministers did talk about it in a percentage term at the beginning of the project, but actually it was a very specific number of premises, which I've mentioned on a number of occasions. Obviously the percentage of premises changes because the number of premises changes, so that’s not a very good judge.

In terms of the availability at 100 per cent, I dislike saying this, Deputy Presiding Officer, because, to some extent, it is a little disingenuous, but, of course, it is available—it's just a question of how much you're prepared to pay for it. So, at this point in time, were you prepared to pay for it, you could get a fast fibre connection to your premises via the Ethernet network, which would cost you quite a lot of money, but it is available. That network has been facilitated across Wales, but it's out of the reach of many of the people of Wales, but it is available if they wanted it, and we have facilitated that. I agree with this; that's true, but it is, nevertheless, true that that is available, and that has been no small feat in itself as well. It's no consolation to Mrs Jones of wherever that she still hasn't got it.

So, I hope, in the statement, I was also emphasising—and I mentioned a few of the projects that are very different in nature—the fact that we have resourced the community teams to make sure that we can go out and get as many of these community projects together as possible to ensure that those people can get fast access to the vouchers and therefore to the schemes, and we're very keen to facilitate those. As you know, I've been doing a tour all around Wales talking to people about what is possible, and out of most of those meetings has come at least one project, and one in your own area, in fact. And I very much emphasise that today—we are very keen to work with businesses and clusters of communities. They could be geographical clusters, they could be interest clusters or anything else—we're very happy to work with them to see what can be facilitated via a scheme.

And the last bit of my response—you did ask me a set of complex questions, to be fair—is: the reason I'm not able to say how much money I'm putting into that is I want to see how much the final lot that's let actually costs and then all the rest of it will be put into the community pot. So, we are determined to spend all the money on the table on fast broadband connection.

Unlike Russell George and Julie James, I'm relatively new to this area now, so do bear with me, but I look forward to working with you on this particular area, leader of the house.

I note that in previous updates on superfast and connectivity, it's been pointed out that this is a market intervention, and I agree, actually, that it would be easier to make progress in this area of delivering wide-ranging coverage if broadband were treated more like a public utility. This is increasingly an absolute life and business necessity for many and is particularly necessary to ensure equality of opportunities in some of our least accessible places. I appreciate that much work remains to ensure wider coverage and accessibility, and I'm aware that there is a significant number of properties that remain without superfast access. I know that Russell George has gone into some of those questions, but I was wondering whether you could tell us a bit more about the numbers of properties that will remain without superfast access despite the new measures that you've announced today.

I think we have to have a discussion about how this can move on and be futureproofed as technology changes rapidly. In the debate earlier, we were talking about Welsh language and digital usage; we have to be looking to the future as to what we will need to put in in terms of infrastructure in 10, 15 or 20 years' time. Once a household has superfast, there is an expectation that this is then enough, but as families grow, as businesses' needs change and new trends emerge, the demand on internet usage also will go up. Are we planning to ensure that we have enough bandwidth to guarantee future access in terms of uploading, downloading and streaming, and if potential increases are needed in the future, how are you planning for this eventuality?

Finally, could you outline in more detail what discussions have been had with the UK Government over this issue and the wider problem of ensuring broad and universal access to broadband? You've said in the past that there is a strong argument that this should be treated like a public utility in the same way that water is. Has there been any movement in that regard with the UK Government and do you anticipate any further assistance from the UK Government in that vein?

This is a very political and philosophical point, really, and the world has moved—. In the last debate, we talked about the difference in the world in five years, and this is a very excellent example of it. So, to be fair, when the UK Government started out on this journey, as did we, it was a luxury technology and some people really didn't want to be connected all the time. I've often cited in this Chamber that the Brecon Beacons had as its advertising slogan, 'Come to Brecon Beacons and be disconnected'—you know, that was a good thing. Now, it is not a good thing, and nobody argues that anymore, and that's a huge and significant change in the way we live our lives. The fact that we're carrying more computer power in our pockets than was existing in the world when I first started to work says something; it's a testimony to the change in the technology. But Government policy has lagged behind that, in my view, and the fact that it's now an essential connectivity and essential infrastructure—. It lagged behind—the policy development. We do have that conversation with them, very often. We had a long and ultimately not very fruitful conversation about the universal service obligation, which is still not resolved because we still don't actually know what it means by 'universal', and, anyway, it's only at 10 Mbps, which, as the Member rightly points out, is very rapidly not enough.

One of the things I would say is that we're very anxious that people who think that their connectivity requirements might go up over 30 Mbps, which is the guaranteed amount on the superfast scheme, should contact the business connectivity services as soon as possible, because we have an advisory service that can go out and forecast your future needs, and, actually, you might be much better to go with the ultrafast connectivity voucher very quickly, and you'd have a much better connection. So, each individual business, in particular, is very different.

In terms of putting the numbers the other way around, we've got 16,000 premises already in lots 1 and 3. I don't know how many are in the next lot; I hope to be able to announce that in the next 10 days. Much of the complexity of the discussion is around pinpointing exactly where the tenderer says they're going so that we can have the certainty that we've often discussed in this Chamber. So, I don't absolutely know, but the overall number of premises at this point—and as I say, as the house builders build, it changes—is 90,000 premises, so you can do the math. We knew that when we embarked on this, £80 million would probably not be enough to get to all of those. As I say, you can still buy the service, but it's expensive. And the other thing I would say—and I say this all the time, acting Deputy Presiding Officer—it's astonishing to me that when people buy a home, they don't knock the price of the connection off the cost of the house these days. I expected to see house prices affected by this, and as yet, they aren't in very many areas.

The leader of the house will be aware that I've written to her again about the Castle Reach and Kingsmead estate in Caerphilly, where houses have been built without any broadband connectivity whatsoever. And I've got to say, the leader of the house's officials and the leader of the house herself have been very proactive in trying to reach a resolution to this problem. However, the same can't be said for Taylor Wimpey, who have refused to meet with her officials, and Openreach, who have gone some way but have fallen a little way short of my expectations. From a Superfast broadband perspective, Taylor Wimpey have sold unconnected homes on the estate, which is very disappointing, and I suspect it's happening elsewhere in Wales. I think that was recognised at the meeting that was held on my behalf with residents and the Welsh Government. Residents in the remaining 50 or so unconnected homes on this estate have been trying to raise money in order to use Access Broadband Cymru, and they recognise the support that the Welsh Government has given them, but it hasn't proven easy, because of financial and organisational barriers. The reality is, when this sort of thing happens, the developers, and in this case Taylor Wimpey, should be funding the connection themselves. They are the people who built the estate without the appropriate connections, and then to refuse to meet with the Government to discuss resolving this is just appalling. I feel they should be funding it in full, but would she join with me in pushing Taylor Wimpey to, at the very least, make a contribution to the ABC scheme?

I find it very frustrating that we're building new houses and estates and we don't put the futureproofing in for the connections. As the Member knows, we've had extensive discussions about it. One of the things I will say is we have now—. I've worked very hard with my Cabinet Secretary colleague, and we will be putting planning guidance out, because I do think councils should be insisting in their 106 connection agreements that the ducting is in, and all the rest of it, and I do think councils need to get more proactive about that. We have had extensive conversations with the house builders. BT has reached an agreement now, subsequent to the building of the estate you're talking about, that where a house builder is building over 30 homes they will put the connection in. But you predate that. I hope that the business exploitation team has actually come up to help with the community assessment and to facilitate some of that. If they haven't, let's have a conversation about how we can facilitate that. There are ways of helping the residents pull the scheme together, pull the broadband access voucher scheme together, and as soon as I'm in a position to announce the last lot, I will be able to announce further community packages that might be helpful in the regard that you're talking about. But, yes, I think the house builder has some responsibility to the people who have bought the houses. I will reiterate the point: it is surprising to me that people don't knock the cost of the connection off the cost of the house, but, as yet, the market has not moved.   

I hope that my comments on the statement by the leader of the house, following on from the conciliatory tone set by colleague Neil Hamilton on an earlier statement, does not lull the Government into some sort of complacency. But, having said that, I thank the leader of the house for today's statement, and I wish to acknowledge and congratulate the Welsh Government on its successful roll-out of superfast broadband. Having read the interventions proposed to bring about the elimination of notspots, I believe that, given the extensive mixture of options on offer, we can be confident that the vast majority, if not all, of the premises in Wales will soon be able to access superfast broadband.

However, there is the matter of take-up of these broadband innovations. So, is the leader of the house able to expand on the promotional aspect of the roll-out and the incentives in place to both educate and encourage business, particularly SMEs, to take up superfast broadband packages? In particular, is BT, as the preferred bidder, putting in place strategies to encourage increased engagement with what superfast broadband can offer? Surely, it would be a great shame if, after all of the good work of the Welsh Government in the provision of superfast broadband, it is not taken up and acted upon by the business community.

Lastly, can the leader of the house expand a little on why the south-east region lags behind the other regions in the procurement lots?   

On that last point, I'm afraid I can't go into any detail, because we are absolutely in the negotiation as we speak. I'm very disappointed that I'm standing here without having concluded it. We do hope to conclude it very shortly. We're literally in the middle of the negotiations; I can't talk about that just at the moment. In terms of take-up, we're well up over the 50 per cent. I remind all Members that, if they can encourage people who could access broadband to take it up, we get a gainshare for that, and that's the reinvestment that we're talking about. That gainshare lasts long after the contract is completed, so take-up over the next five years should be encouraged as much as possible. Although it seems odd to the people who can't get it that people who can get it don't take it up—and very frustrating—actually, in terms of a new technology take-up, the curve of this is much higher than anything else. So, it's faster than electricity rolled out, or telephones or anything else. So, it's actually well ahead of the curve that you'd expect for a new technology take-up, which shows the nature of the change in our society as we really go forward into the information age. That gainshare, as I remind Members—. The original plan was that, once it went over 21 per cent take-up, we got the gainshare. Well, that was an estimate by the technology company at that time of what the take-up would be. We're well up over 50 per cent, which shows the difference in society.

We do have a business exploitation team that goes around showing people what their business would look like if they got online, and helping them get the skills and knowledge to do that via Business Wales and the superfast business exploitation team. I hope all Members will have seen our fabulous lighting strike—there are lovely photos of me standing beside it in various places around Wales. When superfast arrives in a village, we take the lighting rod and we put it in the middle and we try and encourage as many people as possible to come forward. And that's what I was saying about the 550 seminars and all the rest of it that we've had, explaining to people how they can be assisted in both self-employment, and with their business, in taking it up.  

Leader of the house, I raised with you on a number of occasions a similar example to that my colleague Hefin David has raised, and that is the Dyffryn y Coed development, which is a Persimmon development, which I think is a classic example of some of the failings within our planning or our development system for housing. This is a new development in Llantwit Fardre, where the first phase has, of course, had fibre broadband fitted, and the second phase hasn't, and, of course, the buck passes backwards and forwards in terms of whether it is BT or whether it is the developer who actually has the responsibility. It just seems to me that there are a number of things that we do need to look at, and we do need to somehow implement, in all developments. It seems to me that, in a modern, developing Wales, there has to be—. There has to be, I think, a requirement—as close to a statutory requirement as possible—that the highest level available broadband is provided in the same way as water, as gas, as other public utilities are, and the presumption should be that all new-build homes are fitted, and it should be a prerequisite of development.

Of course, the other problem we have is that the situation now is that, with superfast broadband and whatever is the successor to that, the issues of retrofitting are going to come in. It seems to me that that has to be built within the system as well. One of the problems, of course, that the estate that I referred to, the Dyffryn y Coed estate, has is, of course, the complex system of now actually getting fibre broadband actually implemented, the length of time it takes, and I'm very grateful for the help that your department has actually given in at least getting the system going, the grants system and so on. But it is, nevertheless, an incredibly frustrating burden. You see people who, operating their businesses, are having grave difficulty with something that they assumed was going to be there. And I just really wondered what your view is as to whether it's feasible to look at our regulatory or legislative process to ensure that, in future, this happens, at least. And perhaps—I agree very much with what Hefin David said as well, that this must be a primary function and responsibility of the developer. They make enormous fortunes out of this, and if Persimmon can pay £75 million as a bonus to their chief executive, I think they can afford to give the people they sell their houses to decent broadband.

Yes, I entirely agree with the Member's analysis of it. We have worked very hard with colleagues around building regulations and planning consents. And, as I said in reply to Hefin David, the councils could do a lot with the 106 agreements and the insistence—so, when a council does a 106 agreement to tie up the utilities and adopt the road and so on, then it should be ensuring that the broadband ducting and so on is all available. It has to be said that, if the main node is not in the main road it's being connected to, you might not get instant connection, but, without the ducting, a retrofit is, as you say, much more expensive. So, it should be ducted, and all the infrastructures you can put in, even if the node isn't in the road, although, in most places in Wales, it is now. So, I agree with that.

There are also issues around building regs and insulation. I know the Member is familiar with this, but the higher the insulation standard of the house, with which I entirely concur, the more of a Faraday cage it is and the less the signal travels. And so you need the ducting inside the house to allow the signal to transfer, and that's actually an essential part of it as well. And I'm very keen to have a discussion with colleague Ministers around the requirements—and I've had this conversation with Rebecca Evans, the responsible Minister—of social housing, for example, to ensure that people buying affordable housing also have those requirements included in the specification for the house, because what you don't want is to have digital exclusion pushed onto the top of that.

But I entirely concur: the house builders should be looking to ensure that what is now an essential part of twenty-first century life is included in the premises. And I will reiterate once more that it is surprising to me that people don't find out the cost of the connection before they agree the cost of the house.

Just a plea, really. Of the ones that have been connected, the more problematic later ones, I've had some concerns raised in regard to how the installations have been completed. In some of my rural areas—I've raised this with BT, and they say, 'Well, it wasn't in the contract', and it's all this sort of ducking out, if you like, of doing jobs properly. But I've had concerns raised with some of my properties in my rural areas in the Conwy valley, where they've run the line across fields, and so cows are literally pulling the wire, and so—you know, the infrastructure and the setting up of it is not ideal. So, they're going through all that again—having just got it, it's not working properly, so they're having to then contact BT again and finding lots of queues and things and so coming back to me, and I just think that it's mad, really. When they're doing a job, why isn't it done properly in the first place?

So, I would need the detail of the specific premises.

Yes, and it's a few properties. 

As you know, Janet Finch-Saunders—we've had this conversation a lot—if it's part of my contract, then there are requirements for how they do the connections and so on, but if it's part of a private roll-out and a deal with the landowner about wayleave, then I don't have any power to intervene. So, if you want to write to me with the detail, I can find out for you whether it's inside our intervention area or not.

Thank you.