Access to Broadband in South Wales West

Part of 2. Questions to the Leader of the House and Chief Whip – in the Senedd at 2:57 pm on 14 November 2018.

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Photo of Bethan Sayed Bethan Sayed Plaid Cymru 2:57, 14 November 2018

The UK Government has been urging Welsh businesses to apply for their gigabit broadband voucher scheme. I'm sure you know what it is, but it's a scheme where SMEs were given £3,000, but it's now been reduced to £2,500 because it's had such a big uptake, for SMEs to have fibre broadband installed in their businesses where they require that support. But, to me, it was quite shocking to find that, to date, only 58 businesses in Wales had been issued with a voucher, compared to 418 in Northern Ireland and over 300 in Scotland. So, this disparity is something that I'm concerned about, given that businesses come to me quite often saying that they can't get access to broadband. This would, it would seem to me, be an ideal place for them to try to get that funding. So, what are you doing to encourage Welsh businesses, and businesses in my area in South Wales West, to utilise the scheme before it ends? Because I understand, from reading an article online here today, that they are thinking of ending it earlier than planned because of such a large uptake across the rest of the UK. But that doesn't help Wales because we don't have enough people applying. So, what are you doing to get Welsh businesses to apply to this scheme?