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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what EU legislation affects the roll-out of superfast broadband in the UK.

EU legislation includes the current EU Electronic Communications Framework, which aims to incentivise investment in infrastructure, including high speed, high quality broadband.

In addition, the EU directive on 'measures to reduce the cost of deploying high-speed electronic communications networks' aims to reduce the cost of deploying broadband networks by requiring sharing of existing infrastructure across a range of sectors, as well as coordination of publicly-funded civil engineering works. There are also EU Decisions which harmonise the use of spectrum for specific services, including wireless broadband. Finally, any state spending on broadband infrastructure may be subject to EU state aid rules, which aim to avoid disrupting the operation of commercial markets.