Lord Vaizey of Didcot

The Government continues to work with mobile operators and suppliers to build an open, flexible, and diverse telecoms supply market, following the recommendations of the Diversification Taskforce, published on 20 April. The Taskforce recommendations are helping to guide our approach to delivering the Diversification strategy, including its core pillar of accelerating the development and deployment of interoperable solutions, such as Open RAN, into the UK’s 5G network.

Our engagement with both operators and suppliers continues to be constructive and we are delighted with moves made by industry so far that support our aims. The announcement of numerous Open RAN R&D facilities in the UK is a positive sign that our direction of travel is the right one, and we are working at pace to develop targeted actions to ensure that interoperable technologies are ready to deploy in more resilient network infrastructure. The Government is designing a programme of targeted R&D support, building on existing Open RAN trials, such as the SmartRAN Open Networks Interoperability Centre (SONIC), to level the playing field for smaller suppliers, and we continue to consider all options. This will need to support performance demonstration, such as with large-scale urban trials, as well as product development and testing.

The Government continues to work with mobile operators and suppliers to build an open, flexible, and diverse telecoms supply market, following the recommendations of the Diversification Taskforce, published on 20 April. The Taskforce recommendations are helping to guide our approach to delivering the Diversification strategy, including its core pillar of accelerating the development and deployment of interoperable solutions, such as Open RAN, into the UK’s 5G network.

Our engagement with both operators and suppliers continues to be constructive and we are delighted with moves made by industry so far that support our aims. The announcement of numerous Open RAN R&D facilities in the UK is a positive sign that our direction of travel is the right one, and we are working at pace to develop targeted actions to ensure that interoperable technologies are ready to deploy in more resilient network infrastructure. The Government is designing a programme of targeted R&D support, building on existing Open RAN trials, such as the SmartRAN Open Networks Interoperability Centre (SONIC), to level the playing field for smaller suppliers, and we continue to consider all options. This will need to support performance demonstration, such as with large-scale urban trials, as well as product development and testing.

The Government continues to work with mobile operators and suppliers to build an open, flexible, and diverse telecoms supply market, following the recommendations of the Diversification Taskforce, published on 20 April. The Taskforce recommendations are helping to guide our approach to delivering the Diversification strategy, including its core pillar of accelerating the development and deployment of interoperable solutions, such as Open RAN, into the UK’s 5G network.

Our engagement with both operators and suppliers continues to be constructive and we are delighted with moves made by industry so far that support our aims. The announcement of numerous Open RAN R&D facilities in the UK is a positive sign that our direction of travel is the right one, and we are working at pace to develop targeted actions to ensure that interoperable technologies are ready to deploy in more resilient network infrastructure. The Government is designing a programme of targeted R&D support, building on existing Open RAN trials, such as the SmartRAN Open Networks Interoperability Centre (SONIC), to level the playing field for smaller suppliers, and we continue to consider all options. This will need to support performance demonstration, such as with large-scale urban trials, as well as product development and testing.

The UK City of Culture competition is a flagship DCMS programme and a proven model for using culture and creativity to regenerate and transform places. We want to continue to harness this power, especially as places across the UK plan for their recovery from Covid-19. We are currently in dialogue with the devolved administrations and expect to publish the criteria for bidders in the coming months. Subject to the launch date, we anticipate a timetable that will ask places to return expressions of interest towards the middle of this year, and to announce the winning bid at the end of Coventry’s year as UK City of Culture in May 2022. UK City of Culture has been a quadrennial process since 2013 and any announcements about future competitions will be made once the 2025 competition has been confirmed.

I agree with my noble Lord that is important we celebrate our country’s military heroes and are proud of their achievements. We want to see local authorities engaging with their local communities to name streets after local heroes. The department has had no discussions around this issue with local authorities as the naming of streets is the responsibility of local government.