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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made of the increase in the amount of radio spectrum which will be made available to the private sector by 2020.

The current target is to release 500 MHz of spectrum below 5 GHz by 2020, of which 62 MHz has already been released. Ofcom expects to auction up to 190 MHz of additional spectrum at 2.3 GHz and 3.4 GHz in this financial year (2015/16).

The Productivity Plan published on 10 July announced that the Government had implemented a new model for the centralised management of public sector spectrum. Under this model a new Central Management Unit based in the Shareholder Executive will propose a new target for public sector spectrum release to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, along with a plan and timetable for achieving it.

Terms of reference outlining how this new model works will be published on gov.uk in due course.