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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what definition of market failure he used in assessing the deal with the mobile network operators and the necessity of accepting a reduction in the planned increase in annual licence fees.

The government consulted on options to improve mobile coverage as it was keen to see improvements for consumers. The agreement reached with MNOs in December did not include any reduction in the annual licence fees (ALFs) paid by mobile network operators (MNOs) for the use of spectrum. As part of the agreement on mobile coverage announced on 18 December 2014, Government brought the agreement to the attention of Ofcom in the context of their process to review ALFs. Ofcom will continue to set the revised level of ALFs independently, on the basis of full market value as set out under the Secretary of State’s Direction to Ofcom of 2010.