Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the 2017 Electronic Communications Code reform on rent revenues earned by church properties hosting mobile communications infrastructure.

No specific assessment has been made on the impact of the 2017 reforms on church properties. In the impact assessment produced in 2016 to accompany the 2017 reforms, it was anticipated that there would be a reduction in rents from operators to landowners but that it would be difficult to precisely predict the effect of the reforms on rental payments. The impact assessment referenced independent analysis conducted by the specialist telecommunications consultancy Nordicity, commissioned by DCMS, which estimated a potential 40% decrease in rents.