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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, when he expects to release money to the West Midlands Combined Authority to begin the roll out of 5G.

The Urban Connected Communities (UCC) Project, part of the Government’s 5G Testbeds and Trials Programme, is a research and innovation project to trial new 5G technology, services and applications for the public sector, industry and citizens.

The Department will make £25 million of funding available over three years, subject to business case approval, for projects within UCC matched with investment from the local public sector and private sector. There is potential for the Department to make available up to an additional £25m over the same time period.

The project is in a mobilisation stage of work, which the Department is co-funding with the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA). To date, the Department has approved grants of £500K to WMCA, of which £168,600 has been drawn down, WMCA has matched this.