- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2016
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Current Status:
Answered by Fergus Ewing on 10 January 2017
To ask the Scottish Government how many commercial and residential businesses have access to superfast broadband; where superfast is defined by its targets on speed, and what percentage of total potential premises this equates to.
Answer
Ofcom’s Connected Nations 2016 report, published in December 2016, indicates that superfast broadband coverage has reached 83% of all homes and businesses in Scotland. This includes both commercial coverage by BT and other providers, and that delivered through the rollout of the Scottish Government’s £400 million investment through the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) Programme.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 22 December 2016
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Current Status:
Answered by Fergus Ewing on 10 January 2017
To ask the Scottish Government whether any residential or commercial premises that are currently unable to access superfast broadband are, or have been, included in any positive statistical metrics or target measurements that imply they do have access.
Answer
The Scottish Government’s £400 million investment through the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband Programme is having a significant impact across Scotland with around 679,000 homes and businesses now able to access fibre broadband services. Over 90% of these are able to receive superfast speeds.
Measurements of progress in delivering the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband Programme are generally expressed in terms of enabling connection to fibre broadband. As has been made clear, this will provide superfast broadband access for the great majority of, but not all, premises connected.
The Scottish Government is committed to delivering 100% superfast coverage by 2021. This will include any and all premises currently unable to achieve superfast speeds.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 December 2016
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Current Status:
Answered by Fergus Ewing on 10 January 2017
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that all (a) households and (b) commercial premises that currently do not have the opportunity to access high-speed broadband will be included in its plans for 100% coverage.
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to delivering 100% superfast broadband coverage by 2021. We are currently conducting an Open Market Review. This is a formal consultation with broadband suppliers to determine their commercial investment plans over the next 3 years. This will allow us to define an intervention area ahead of new procurement activity to be initialized later this year.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 December 2016
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Current Status:
Answered by Fergus Ewing on 10 January 2017
To ask the Scottish Government how much of the money allocated to support the roll-out of fibre cable broadband has been future-proofed to deal with any increase in demand or speed.
Answer
The Scottish Government and our partners are investing over £400 million in the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband Programme, which is delivering new fibre-enabled infrastructure that can be built upon as technology advances.
The predominant technology used in the programme is Fibre to the Cabinet. The programme is also delivering more full Fibre to the Premises connections to harder to reach communities, capable of delivering 10 times the speed of standard superfast connections.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 December 2016
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 December 2016
To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has carried out or plans on the effect would of driverless cars being allowed on roads.
Answer
The Scottish Government supports and encourages research, testing and development of autonomous vehicles in Scotland, subject to ensuring the safety of road users.
Most of the relevant legislation is reserved to the UK Government and Transport Scotland is working closely with the Department for Transport and the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles in this area.
Transport Scotland is also liaising with other roads authorities across Europe on the introduction of driverless vehicles, in order to ensure that road authorities and operators are in a position to make informed decisions on facilitating automated driving as and when the technology develops.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 December 2016
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 22 December 2016
To ask the Scottish Government what action it takes to support the video games industry.
Answer
Scottish Enterprise have worked extensively with the games industry for a long period. In the last 4 years (to the end of 2015-2016) Scottish Enterprise has invested nearly £10 million (£9.8 million) in 38 video games companies of which more than half (£5.5 million) was through the Scottish Investment Bank and the remainder largely split between innovation grants and regional selective assistance.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 December 2016
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 21 December 2016
To ask the Scottish Government what action it takes to encourage more job opportunities in the digital sector.
Answer
Scotland has a thriving tech community with home grown digital technology companies like Skyscanner and Rockstar North achieving global success – we want more of them to do so. We are trialling new methods of supporting business innovation, including a digital sector pilot project in Edinburgh, which is being developed by members of the Scotland CAN DO Innovation Forum.
We also know that right now in Scotland we need several thousand new entrants a year into digital professions to meet both replacement and growth demand – a need that our labour market cannot currently meet. We are therefore working with partners to deliver the ICT & Digital Technologies Skills Investment Plan – a range of projects that aims to meet the immediate needs of industry and broaden the future talent pool.
We believe that the adoption and use of digital technologies by business will assist growth across all sectors. We want to ensure that all of our businesses have access to the skills and connectivity which will enable them to reach new customers and markets, to innovate and grow and importantly create more highly paid, highly skilled, job opportunities.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 08 December 2016
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Current Status:
Answered by Fergus Ewing on 21 December 2016
To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to work with the UK Government to with regard to the recently announced investment in 5G technology to ensure that Scotland benefits from this.
Answer
Regulation of mobile telephony is reserved to the UK Government. Nevertheless, the Scottish Government is seeking to engage with the UK Government at the earliest opportunity to ensure that the investment announced in the Autumn Statement supports early 5G trials and deployment in Scotland. On 25 October 2016, I wrote to Matt Hancock MP, Minister for State at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, on 25 October seeking a meeting to progress a range of digital issues, including 5G.
A key aim of our digital infrastructure programmes is to ensure that Scotland has the underlying connectivity infrastructure that can support the future evolution of digital technologies such as 5G. We are already collaborating with other key partners, including the 5G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey and Ofcom, who will help create the regulatory environment governing 5G. Our aim is to ensure that Scotland is at the forefront of 5G development and deployment.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 08 December 2016
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Current Status:
Answered by Fergus Ewing on 19 December 2016
To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to address the roll-out of high speed broadband to the last 5% of homes and businesses, including how it will manage the tender for public funds to provide this, and whether it will consider the widest possible range of technologies in reaching remainder households and premises.
Answer
We expect delivery of our 100% superfast broadband commitment to involve a number of different interventions, utilising a range of technologies and commercial solutions. Further details will be provided during 2017 once we have analysed the results of the recently launched Open Market Review – a consultation with broadband suppliers to determine their commercial investment plans over the next 3 years, and undertaken further market engagement.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 08 December 2016
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Current Status:
Answered by Fergus Ewing on 19 December 2016
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the UK Government’s announcement in the Autumn Statement of a £1 billion digital infrastructure investment.
Answer
While further investment in digital infrastructure is to be welcomed, it is important that Scotland benefits from this new funding to reflect the greater challenges associated with delivering telecoms here.
The Scottish Government is engaging with UK Government to obtain more information on the Autumn Budget statement announcements and to highlight opportunities for collaboration, particularly around 5G trials and delivery of our 100% superfast broadband commitment.
