Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department has plans to (a) reform, (b) revoke or (c) retain the Communications (Access to Infrastructure) Regulations 2016.

In 2020, the Government launched a Review of The Communications (Access to Infrastructure) Regulations 2016 (“ATI Regulations”) to explore whether improvements could be made to further boost investment in infrastructure, and encourage the use of infrastructure sharing to deploy telecoms networks.

In our response to the call for evidence published in June 2020, the Government stated it would not be making any major changes to the ATI Regulations at this time. The Government believed that doing so would be disproportionate given the low levels of interest from industry. However, we have created powers through the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act to change the ATI regulations via secondary legislation in future if necessary.

The Government wants to make it as easy as possible for companies to build out fibre networks. Sharing infrastructure reduces the overall impact on society by reducing the need for new poles or digging out new ducts for cables.

The Government's review of the Access to Infrastructure regulations can be found here.