2. Will the Leader of the House provide an update on superfast broadband in Preseli Pembrokeshire? OAQ53065

Yes. Although we don't hold information specifically for Preseli, under the Superfast Cymru project we provided access to fast fibre broadband to 54,500 premises across Pembrokeshire, delivering average speeds of 77.6 Mbps and investing over £15.8 million.

Leader of the house, as you are fully aware, superfast broadband is critical for many people, particularly people running businesses and people living alone who rely on it as a lifeline. On 23 October you said that you would provide us with details of who would be next able to access superfast broadband. In fact, you said, and I quote,

'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.'

Given this particular statement, could you now give us an update and tell us when this information will be forthcoming for the benefit of people living in my constituency who want to install superfast broadband as soon as possible?

It was a hope. I thought it was a hope that I could be relatively secure about, but actually it's turned out to be way more complex, with the negotiations between ourselves and the various other members of the state aid provision issue. So the procurement has just turned out to be much more complex than we had hoped in the first place. We are hoping, as I just said in response to Janet Finch-Saunders, to be able to have that information very soon now. I know I sound a little bit like groundhog day myself in saying that, but we do very much hope to have that. We want to be really specific about it, so that we don't have the same problems we had before with people falling out of the programme. We do want to be specific, so I do hope we will have that information very shortly.

And I would encourage the Member, because I know you have communities in your area as well who could come together and perhaps get it faster—a faster connection I mean, rather than faster in time—using the voucher schemes. We are just working to see what we can do alongside the UK gigabit voucher scheme as well, so that we enhance the system so that people in Wales have a little bit more access to it. But, I would encourage people to be proactively in touch with us if you do have those communities, or communities of business, so that we can work together to pool the vouchers to see what we can do.

Last week I met a group of family farming businesses, about 20 businesses altogether, at Trecelyn Isaf farm in Eglwyswrw. They highlighted to me some of the issues for farming businesses that I actually, to be honest, hadn't thought of, if they can't get access to really high-quality broadband, and that included not being able to use the best technology to regulate their use of inputs—all of those sorts of things.

In the light of what you've said to the Chamber before about being prepared to meet people with specific concerns, I've invited those businesses who've had those issues to write to me. If we find that we've got a geographical cluster, can I invite you to come and meet them and see what innovative solutions we might be able to give? Because I was particularly struck by the potential benefits to the environment. It's obviously good for their businesses if they're restricting their inputs, because it costs them less money, but it also has potential benefits to the environment to make sure that there's less risk of spills and things like that. So I very much hope that, if we do get a sufficient number, you will come to meet them. If it is one business here and one business there, perhaps I'll write to you with the details.

It's worth looking at a cluster of people even if they're quite geographically spread. It's surprising what can be done with some of the technologies, and precision agriculture is one of the really big uses of this, so we have a number of examples of communities across Wales where one farmer has been connected and has been able to broadcast the signal, for example, to a number of other farmers. That would allow all kinds of precision agriculture techniques, including smart tractors, precision fertiliser and spraying and all that sort of stuff, which is incredibly interesting when you see it set out. We're very keen on that.

Deputy Presiding Officer, I have no idea whether I will be the Minister in charge of this in the next few weeks, but I will say that, rather than waiting for a Minister, whether it's me or not—and if it is me, I'd be more than happy to come—there is a team of people who are expert in this who can go through the detail. So if you write in to my office, they will make sure that the team itself is in touch, and I think you'll find that you have a very good meeting with that team of people, who are very skilled in getting the group together and explaining what can and can't be done within the project. We've had good success across Wales.