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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department is making with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities of the potential merits of introducing a voucher scheme for small landlords to deal with the costs associated with processing a wayleave.

Small landlords are already able to recover the costs of processing a wayleave. Wayleaves fall within the scope of the Electronic Communications Code, which makes provision for landowners to receive compensation from telecoms operators for any loss they incur due to entering into a wayleave or any other access agreement.

The costs should therefore be met by the operator seeking the wayleave and the government has no plans at this stage to introduce or fund a voucher scheme for these purposes.