Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what her Department's expected timescales are for the rollout of fibre broadband to all premises in Arfon.

Almost 97% of premises in the Arfon constituency are able to access a superfast connection (>= 30Mbps), more than enough for the vast majority of requirements such as high-definition streaming and video calling on multiple devices. Currently, 49% of premises in the Arfon constituency are able to access a full-fibre connection. Households can request a full-fibre connection from suppliers, but we do not hold the data regarding the number of premises that have requested full-fibre connections.

In March 2021, the government launched Project Gigabit, its £5 billion mission to deliver gigabit-capable (>1000Mbps) broadband to UK premises that are not included in suppliers' commercial plans.

We conduct extensive market reviews to identify the premises that do not currently have gigabit-capable infrastructure, or are not included in suppliers’ commercial plans. This enables us to identify the premises that are eligible for public subsidy and design the areas for Project Gigabit interventions.

We are on track to launch our first procurement covering large parts of Wales this summer, and this is likely to include some premises in the Arfon constituency.

On top of our Project Gigabit procurements, the Welsh Government’s Superfast Cymru programme is expected to complete this month, and in total the programme has provided over 100,000 premises in Wales with access to gigabit-capable infrastructure.

For the small number of very hard to reach premises which are unlikely to be connected to gigabit-capable infrastructure through Project Gigabit or suppliers’ commercial plans, the government is exploring all possible options for providing improved broadband connectivity.