Telecommunications: Infrastructure

(asked on 16th July 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 26 May 2021 to Question 5194 on Telecommunications: Infrastructure, what estimate he has made of the average rental payment to landowners; and what assessment he has made of the the impact of rental payments on digital connectivity.


Answered by
Matt Warman Portrait
Matt Warman
This question was answered on 22nd July 2021

It is not possible to provide estimates of the average rental payments to landowners as these are commercial matters.

The price paid for rights to install digital infrastructure is, in the first instance, a matter for negotiation between operators and site providers. But reforms relating to the legislation underpinning these rights were introduced in 2017. Those changes were intended to strike a balance between ensuring individual landowners do not incur losses and making network deployment and maintenance more cost effective. In our view, prices being paid for rights to install communications apparatus prior to 2017 were too high and reflected the increase in demand that had taken place for digital services. With digital communications becoming an increasingly critical part of daily life, changes were made to the valuation regime to address this. The pricing regime now in place is more closely aligned to those for utilities like water, electricity and gas. The recent consultation on further changes to the Code made it clear that the government is not revisiting the valuation regime introduced in 2017.

Responses to the recent consultation are currently being considered. We will carefully consider the impact of our proposals on all stakeholders and will carry out a full assessment of the impacts, in line with the usual processes.

Discussions are regularly held between the department and the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on a range of issues including telecoms matters. However, I have not had specific conversations regarding the impact of the changes to rental negotiations on local government finances and the provision of public services.

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