3. What additional support will the Welsh Government provide to enable communities to access better broadband services? OQ56711

I thank Llyr Gruffydd for that question. Responsibility for broadband services is not devolved to Wales. However, this Government continues to invest in better access through our local broadband fund, our Access Broadband Cymru scheme and our fibre roll-out.

Thank you for that response. I would be very pleased if you could confirm that those funds are all open and live at the moment. I have been contacted by some communities, including Llanrhaeadr-yng-Nghinmeirch and Cyffylliog in Denbighshire, who have agreed to work with a company to bring fibre broadband to the area, taking advantage of the funding that is available from the UK Government, and the intention then of benefiting from the additional funds that come from the Welsh Government. Before the election it was said that that funding would come to an end because of the electoral period. Since then, they're still awaiting assurance that those funds are open again, and that, of course, as you can imagine, is the cause of some frustration, because there are over 1,000 homes in the area I'm talking about—the majority of them have poor access to broadband. And we know about other areas in Wales, mostly in rural areas, that are facing the same situation. So, can you confirm when these communities will have confirmation that funds are available to tackle a problem that continues to be a problem that is more than any one of us would have wished?

I'd like to thank Llyr Gruffydd for that supplementary question. The problem is that the UK Government has changed the programme that they have in place. They've just launched a new scheme to help people in the position that Llyr Gruffydd made reference to. We have agreed with the UK Government on that new plan, and we are still determined to provide additional funding over and above the UK programme for people here in Wales. I think, today, the UK Government has published a statement that provides more details about the new scheme and does confirm that the funding provided in the past from the Government here in Wales—which is £3,000 for the individuals and £7,000 for businesses—will remain in place. I'm not quite sure when the UK scheme will open for individuals, but from what I've seen today, that isn't too far away now.

First Minister, it is estimated that around 75,000 older people in Wales have noted that they feel lonely almost all of the time or often, and it’s clear that we have to consider isolation as a priority for public health. So, for older people, access to broadband is vital. This has helped people to stay in touch with family and friends and to access online services that are useful for them, particularly during the pandemic. So, what is the Welsh Government doing to help to increase digital inclusivity nationwide? How will the Government ensure that older people, in all parts of Wales, have access to suitable broadband services to safeguard their mental health and their well-being?

I’d also like to thank Paul Davies for that supplementary question. I saw the research that he referred to on the impact of the pandemic on those living alone and on older people in particular. We are driving forward with the investments that we have provided as a Government. As I said in my original response, it isn’t our responsibility to provide broadband services here in Wales, but we have invested millions of pounds in order to provide access to those services in all parts of Wales. The pandemic has shed light on the importance of this. We will continue with all programmes that we have in place and will provide additional funding for that. In addition to the funding that we’ll provide to help people who will pursue the new UK Government scheme, we are proceeding with a local fund that provides £10 million to local authorities and businesses to help them. There will be more funding for the Superfast Cymru successor programme. It's the Government's intention to build on everything that we have done in the past, and to do it in a way that assists people in all parts of Wales, and focuses on people who've not had access to broadband and who live alone.

May I send my best wishes to the First Minister and his family?

In a survey at the beginning of this month, more than 50 per cent of respondents from rural areas in Wales felt that the internet was not fast and reliable, particularly people in Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire. Only 36 per cent of people in rural areas had superfast broadband, compared to 67 per cent in urban areas. I wonder if the First Minister could just comment on the roll-out of superfast broadband, just helping us all, as well, to be clear about the responsibility for the roll-out of superfast broadband. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I'd like to thank Jane Dodds and thank her for her opening remarks.

In terms of responsibility, it is completely clear that this is not a devolved matter; it is the responsibility of the UK Government. In the fashion that you would expect, given their ideological predilections, they thought that they could rely on the market to provide a service of this sort. Clearly, the market has failed, and the market will always fail in those places to which Jane Dodds has referred. The market will take care of densely populated areas where there's money to be made and will never provide a service in remote and rural Wales, where the cost of delivering fast broadband to a particular property will always exceed the money that is to be recouped from the people who live there. That is why the Welsh Government stepped in. That is why we were part of Superfast Cymru in the previous Senedd term—over £200 million invested and 733,000 premises provided with fast, reliable broadband.

Access to full fibre broadband, at 21 per cent of premises in Wales, is higher than in England or in Scotland. It was, I think, disappointing that the UK Government's plans, which were to provide gigabit broadband to all premises in the UK by 2025, have since been scaled back. Instead of it being a 100 per cent commitment, as first announced, it's now been reduced to 85 per cent, and the problem is, as Jane Dodds was suggesting, I think, that those extra 15 per cent will continue to be those people in those rural and remoter parts of Wales where the costs involved are very significant. We will go on, with our successor programme to Superfast Cymru, and with the other programmes that I have outlined in my earlier answers, Llywydd, to supplement what is available from the UK Government, spending Welsh money where UK money ought to be more generously invested, in order to go on trying to find ways of providing the sort of high-speed, reliable broadband connections that we've all learnt to be so important over the last 15 months, and which are particularly significant in those rural communities.