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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she will review the potential effect of the 2017 Electronic Communications Code on rents paid to landowners to allow mobile masts on their land.

Since the introduction of the reforms in 2017 we have continually listened to feedback from stakeholders on the impact those changes have had on the expansion and improvement of digital networks across the UK. The culmination of this process was a consultation on potential further reform to the Code, published in January 2021. The consultation closed in March 2021 and responses are being considered. The Government’s response will be published shortly.

The provisions concerning how rents are calculated were not part of that consultation. The 2017 reforms were intended to strike a balance between ensuring individual landowners do not incur any losses and enabling the deployment of digital networks more cost effective. It is the Government’s view that the cost of acquiring rights to install digital infrastructure prior to 2017 was too high and needed to be addressed. The pricing regime now in place is more closely aligned to those for utilities such as water and electricity and reflects the fact that access to good quality digital services is an increasingly critical part of daily life for residents across the UK.