6. Debate on the Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee Report — 'Digital connectivity — broadband'

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:04 pm on 16 November 2022.

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Photo of Alun Davies Alun Davies Labour 4:04, 16 November 2022

I remember debating this with Ieuan Wyn Jones long before 2011, and Angela Burns led the work on that at that time. So, this goes back for many, many years. But I'm not here simply trying to allocate blame in the way that you are simply trying to describe here, because I think there's a failure, a systemic failure, here of the system that delivers broadband. And although we can point fingers back and forth in the Chamber if you wish to, that's a sterile exercise. It achieves nothing, because what we are not doing is addressing the roots of the failure. I want to see the Welsh Government—and I won't test your patience any longer, Deputy Presiding Officer—I want to see the Welsh Government working together with Members of the Senedd to ensure that the system that is in place works for Wales. That means that Ofcom is empowered or told to deliver regulation that delivers for the citizens of Wales, wherever they live, that the UK Government funds the work that they need to fund, and, where there is market failure, there is intervention to correct that failure. But for too often we've allowed telecommunication companies to make far too much money, frankly, on the backs of not serving the citizens that we represent, and that is a significant failure of policy over a period of 20 years. And that failure of policy affects communities in every part of this country, and we need to address that failure of policy, and not score pretty low-level political points in this Chamber on a Wednesday afternoon.