Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy and Transport – in the Senedd at 1:43 pm on 12 June 2019.

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Photo of Bethan Sayed Bethan Sayed Plaid Cymru 1:43, 12 June 2019

Thank you very much for that answer, and I recognise the work on decarbonisation, but I wanted to focus on digital, and I think that Wales is unprepared for, potentially, the next industrial revolution. We led the last one, but we are still lagging behind in this regard. Just to give you an example, there are large sections of society that even struggle to get 3G coverage as opposed to coverage in any other shape or form. And, of course, these are many rural areas, but agri-tech is stopped in its tracks by virtue of the fact that they don't even have that basic coverage.

So, we already have a lot of this infrastructure in Wales. The investment packages exist through the city deals, and the UK Government's £200 million rural fibre fund. So, we think that Transport for Wales, believe it or not, can act as an enabler for the creation of interconnected, international 5G fibre and space technologies infrastructure for Wales, and the cost of a national digital infrastructure could be in the region of £110 million, with the potential for half of this being covered by the UK Government's rural fibre fund.

So, this isn't just about the digital infrastructure in and of itself; it's about positioning Wales at the forefront of new industries. So, what steps are you taking in relation to digital infrastructure to facilitate the development of new industries, which, at the moment, are lagging purely because that isn't in existence?