Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to Box 3 on page 6 of the Green Book Appraisal and Valuation in Central Government, which of these possible outputs were produced before the Government's recent agreement with mobile network operators on improving mobile coverage across the UK.
Government undertook a public consultation on measures to address poor mobile coverage in November 2014, and this included an impact assessment covering these measures. This impact assessment received a favourable opinion and a green rating from the independent Regulatory Policy Committee. The impact assessment is available on the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/tackling-partial-not-spots-in-mobile-phone-coverage
The agreement on mobile coverage announced on 18 December 2014 between Government and the four mobile network operators (MNOs) to improve mobile coverage is voluntary, and was not achieved through regulatory intervention. The MNOs have now made the agreed coverage obligations legally binding, by requesting that Ofcom vary their spectrum licences on a voluntary basis. Ofcom published the relevant licence variations on 2 February 2015.