2. Will the Leader of the House provide an update on broadband connectivity in Arfon? OAQ52897

Yes, indeed. Although we do not hold information specifically relating to Arfon, I can confirm that the Superfast Cymru scheme provided access to fast fibre broadband to over 58,440 homes and businesses in Gwynedd, delivering average speeds of over 102 Mbps and investing over £16.2 million.  

Thank you. The quality of connectivity to broadband in Arfon is inconsistent, be that in urban or rural areas. For example, in the Menai business park in Bangor, businesses are placed at a significant disadvantage because of the lack of quality of the connectivity. Many constituents have given me examples where a handful of homes are exempted; although fibre to the premises is provided for most of the premises the work hasn't been completed. There are some homes that have been left behind in Waen Pentir, Nebo, Nasareth, Tregarth and Tal-y-bont. Is this a sign of a lack of planning for the work and for that planning to happen appropriately? And, by the way, I do look forward to welcoming you to the Arfon constituency on 29 November, where we can air some of these problems in full.

Yes, I'm very much looking forward to coming. I find it very useful to go around Wales talking specifically to individuals and their communities about why we are where we are now and what can be done to specifically address their individual and community issues. We know that it's frustrating when you're one of the people who've been left out of the previous programme. It did deliver 733,000 premises for connectivity, but, of course, if you're one of the people who's in the remaining few per cent it's very frustrating indeed, and that's indeed why I'm doing the tour—to try and understand exactly what we can do. We have just done the procurement for lots 1 and 3. That's complete; the successful bidder is BT plc, and a grant agreement was in fact signed yesterday, as it happens. We will be now looking to clarify with them exactly which premises are included in their roll-out plans, and as soon as we have that information, we'll be able to convey it to local representatives, so that they can ensure that people are aware. And also then, of course, we will know who isn't included, so that we can come forward with a large number of other schemes that we plan, to get communities together, to have individual bespoke solutions, to look at how we can adapt our voucher schemes, and in general find a solution for those people who are not included. So, that's the way forward, and I'm very much looking forward to discussing the specifics in your constituency when I come.

Thank you. Joyce Watson.

No.

No. Okay. Mark Isherwood.

Diolch. Responses I received from Openreach on behalf of constituents from Arfon and Anglesey, across to Flintshire and Wrexham, after the Superfast Cymru project ended on 31 December last year, all had the line 'deployment work has stopped completely on any projects that have not been finished'. On 23 October, in your statement to the Assembly, you confirmed that lot 1 north Wales for the successor programme was now complete, that work on the underlying network to support the project would begin shortly, and that evaluation for east Wales was ongoing. It would be helpful if you could clarify where the north Wales and east Wales borders begin and end. But constituents have subsequently asked whether jobs that remained unfinished following the end of BT's contract last December will receive priority in north Wales, as we now go forward under lot 1.

The superfast website has the map outlined—I can send the link again to the Member; it shows exactly where the lots are, and what's included and not included. As I said, we're in the process of negotiating exactly which premises, because we very much want to learn from some of the experiences of the communications in the first superfast scheme, around giving people certainty about where they are in the programme, and what they can expect, and also giving them certainty that they're not in the programme, so that we can address issues in that way. We are actually still in conversation with Openreach about what are called stranded resources—the investment that they put into the ground that wasn't complete. I just want to make it very clear once again, Deputy Presiding Officer, that we have not paid a penny towards those stranded resources; the conversation is about whether they want to put their commercial money behind that, or whether it wants to be included in this lot, or whether there's some other arrangement that we can meet around the gain share in order to connect those premises up. But it's their commercial outlay—they invested the money to put that down; it's not being done with public money, and it's a commercial matter for them in the end.

Thank you. We now turn to spokespeople's questions. And the first this afternoon is the Conservative spokesperson, Russell George.

Diolch, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I ask the leader of the house why she is withholding information on phase 2 of the Superfast  Cymru scheme?

I'm not withholding any information that I'm aware of. As I said, we've let lots 1 and 3. We're still in negotiation with lot 2. I'm very frustrated about how long that's taking, but as soon as I am in a position to say what's happening with that, I will of course do so.

Well, I do share your frustrations, leader of the house. I did table written questions to you over a week ago. The due date for answer was yesterday, and I do wonder why there is a delay. Is it to avoid scrutiny in today's questions? Also, you did suggest in yesterday's business statement that you were waiting until today's questions to make some kind of announcement about lot 2, or phase 2, of the Superfast Cymru scheme. Now, like many Members across this Chamber, I have inquiries every single day from constituents so frustrated about the lack of information, complaining about the lack of information, and the delays on the implementation of the next scheme. So, I would question why this information about lot 2, and other information that I have asked for, hasn't been released at the earliest opportunity. You will be aware that some premises that were under review in the first Superfast Cymru contract did not receive superfast broadband. How and when will it be known whether or not these premises will be part of the contract to provide superfast broadband, and what comprehensive strategy will there be to enable unaddressed premises to have superfast broadband?

I'm sorry about the written answers. You've actually had an answer today, which won't make you happy at all, saying that we just couldn't get the data together in the time available. So, I've asked officials to just tell you that. I was actually hoping to be able to give you the information in the answer, in the time period, but it hasn't been possible to do. So, I'm sure in your inbox, at the end of this session, you'll find something from me apologising for that. The answer simply says we don't have the data available at the moment. I am as frustrated as you are by the problems we're having with the lot 2 contract. As soon as I am in a position to tell you something about it, I will. You can hear that I hope daily to be able to do that. I'm deeply frustrated by not being able to do so. There have been a large number of difficulties that I am more than happy to share with the Chamber as soon as I am able to do so. 

Thank you. I am pleased to hear that your frustrations are as mine, and my frustration are borne out of the inbox that I receive from my constituents. I appreciate that you are waiting for this information from officials, but I do question why this information isn't already available, but I thank you for getting that information to me as soon as you do have it available.

You know my views with regard to phase 1 and phase 2. There should have been a seamless transition between the two schemes. There was an open access market review that would have given an indication of which premises need to be in phase 2, or which premises would not have been completed in phase 1. But my final question is in regard to new and recently built premises, which may not be in scope for this second contract. What method is there in place to ensure that such premises get included as swiftly as possible without having to wait for another protracted next generation open access review?

For what it's worth, I share your frustration. Many of your constituents write directly to me as well. So, I still have a very large postbag of people whose frustration I entirely share. And this is, without rehearsing the same old arguments, a function of the way that we are restricted in doing this. It's not regarded as infrastructure. It is regarded as a market intervention in an existing market. So, each time we intervene, we have to show again that we are covered by the state aid rule exemption. We have to do that through the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in the UK Government, and through Broadband Development UK. It's a long and tortuous process. We have continual conversations with them about how to speed that process up. We have had many conversations. My colleague the Minister for housing and I, and my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for planning have had numerous conversations with new build and house builders across Wales about including at least the cabling out to the road when the road is adopted and so on, so that when broadband comes along the highway outside it's an easy connect and so on. There is an agreement for builds over 30 houses, but the rest is still up to the market. And then, each time, I have to prove a market failure.

So, I hope you can hear that I'm as frustrated with this situation as you are. It would help if the UK Government would be able to move forward its universal broadband obligation, and if we could understand exactly how that is to be moved forward, so that we could piggyback on that. We're in extensive conversation with them about how to do that, and as soon as I have any information on that, I'm more than happy to share it. But, in the end, this is still being treated as a luxury product, when, in fact, it is an essential infrastructure, and we have to have a change in that attitude in order to be able to move this agenda on. 

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Leanne Wood. 

Leader of the house, your list of responsibilities includes human rights in relation to United Nations and European Union conventions. Can you explain how you work with other departments and Ministers, in particular the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport, to ensure compliance with human rights in relation to UN and EU conventions?

Yes. I have a series of meetings, bilaterals, as we call them, one-on-one with each Cabinet Secretary and Minister of the Government on a rolling programme. I've just completed my first year in this portfolio. I've met all of them at least once, and with some of them I'm on the second round. And the purpose of that is to go through their portfolio responsibilities and to talk about how we ensure that the underlying principles of the conventions, the UN and human rights and, actually, all equality issues are included properly in their portfolio and brought forward to the front. I'm just doing the same thing for the gender review, actually. I'm just at the end of the set of meetings in which I'm doing the same thing for that. 

Okay, thank you for your answer. Your colleague and Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport is listed as the keynote speaker at an arms fair in Cardiff to be held next year. This event will involve the sale of weapons to regimes with appalling human rights records that are involved in serious armed conflicts, including Saudi Arabia, a country that were it not for its oil interests would have been regarded as a state sponsor of terrorism, as any honest analysis would conclude. Can you explain how your colleague's explicit endorsement of this bazaar of brutality is compatible with compliance with human rights obligations?

I did not know that my colleague was scheduled to speak there, and I will be more than happy to take that up with him. 

Well, thank you for agreeing to do that, leader of the house, because there are 14 million people in Yemen that are on the brink of famine, thanks to the war, which our arms trade is supporting—one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent years. The Saudi regime remains a regime that heavily oppresses women, restricts basic freedoms and assassinates its opponents overseas. It's heavily linked to the growth of the Taliban, as you know, in the 1990s, and the only reason that our Governments deny this is because of the influence of big oil, BAE Systems and UK politics. How can your Government possibly justify this? 

As you heard the First Minister say, in First Minister's questions yesterday, he's more than happy to look into the comments that were made about the possibility that that arms trade is being helped by any Welsh Government money and report back to the Chamber. And I'll make sure that I'll do the same thing in talking to colleagues who are supporting anything of that sort. 

Thank you. The UKIP spokesperson, David Rowlands. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. As you know, leader of the house, I have often been complimentary about the success of the Welsh Government's digital roll-out in Wales. But, leader of the house, I'm sure you will agree that digital exclusion is where a person is not a regular internet user. This can come about for a number of reasons, not just lack or not of physical infrastructure. It can be as a result of inadequate finances leading to the inability to pay, either for the hardware or indeed the internet connection fee. This could be particularly applied to the poorest in society, and we all acknowledge that as technology rapidly evolves digital exclusion can be a barrier to a person living a fulfilling and productive life. This issue is placed into sharp relief when we consider the unemployed. If you are actively seeking work, being able to use the internet is, or is very close to, being an essential tool to search for job vacancies and for completing applications for vacancies. Can the leader of the house indicate to us any interventions currently in place that might mitigate this exclusion? 

Yes, we fund a number of programmes in this space: we fund Digital Communities Wales and, in fact, we are about to increase the size of that to £6 million to include health digital inclusion activities. We know from the national survey for Wales that about 60 per cent of people aged 75 or over and about 26 per cent of disabled people do have digital exclusion issues. So, the programme is particularly targeted to ensure that those communities can access health and social care services in particular, and also universal credit services.

We run a number of other programmes including business exploitation programmes. So, as the superfast programme rolls out, a team of people comes behind it, which is entirely aimed at increasing take-up and making sure that small businesses in particular in the area of the roll-out are able to get the benefit of getting online, and that they don't simply transform their old paper systems digitally, but they actually understand what that digital exploitation might look like and how they might increase their business in that way. We also run a whole series of digital pioneer programmes in our primary schools and secondary schools. And, of course, our twenty-first century schools programme is a collaboration, which includes strategic capital investment for our education estate to ensure digital inclusion in all of our curriculum. 

I thank the leader of the house for her answer, and you have pre-empted part of my third question. The most recent survey for Wales indicated, on page 7, that 10 per cent of unemployed people are not regularly internet users and this exactly matches the previous year's figure of 10 per cent. Now, whilst this does show some positive aspects in that the figure has not increased year on year, it does appear that the interventions you outlined earlier seem to be having little effect. So, leader of the house, is it not time to revisit some of those strategies now in place?  

Yes, I quite agree with him, and that's exactly why we've just looked at how we can change the way that we do the Digital Communities Wales programme. And when that programme comes to an end, at the end of this financial year, it will be re-procured on the basis of a doubled-sized programme to take in the people who are reliant on digital services, such as he outlines—people who have universal credit issues, but, actually, those who have much more specific issues around health and social care, because we do know that most of the people suffering that kind of digital exclusion are people over 75 and are more likely to be involved in health and social care, and people with disabilities also are more likely to be involved in health and social care.

Again, I thank the leader of the house for an honest answer to that question.

Can I move on to another aspect, which I indicated earlier that you had alluded to? I was pleased to see that a survey for Wales showed no significant gender differences in personal internet use for ages 65 and below. However, for the ages 65 to 74, the survey records a somewhat puzzling statistic: that 75 per cent of men and only 68 per cent of women are regular internet users. However, a far more telling statistic, and one that you did mention earlier—one of perhaps greater concern—is that, for ages 75 upwards, only 40 per cent are internet active. Now, given the fact that many services are now being moved to deliver online, including financial and medical services, is it not time to redouble our efforts to get all of the people more engaged with the internet and, indeed, the digital revolution being played out around them?

Yes. As I say, I completely agree with him. There is definitely an age divide here. Obviously, those people who grew up in the digital world, grow up with competencies that older people have to acquire later on in life, and that can be more difficult as the world changes around you. But Digital Communities Wales works with a wide range of organisations best placed to reach digitally excluded people. They offer training and support to embed digital inclusion within other organisations as well as help to train and place volunteers. So, they work with a number of organisations that also work with people likely to be digitally excluded. This includes, for example, libraries, where there is free access to and support for the internet for those who need it most. So, it overcomes the issue that David Rowlands raised about being able to afford internet provision at home. We’ve just extended that, whilst we look at doubling the programme to include health and social care.

We now return to the questions on the order paper. Question 3, Rhianon Passmore.