Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether her Department holds information on the average rental income for telecommunication providers (a) before and (b) after the Electronic Communications Code 2017 was implemented.

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.

During the passage of the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022, it was suggested by Speed up Britain, an industry group, that the average rent reduction was 63%. Given the commercial – and often sensitive – nature of most Code agreements, meaningful data on rents would be difficult to collect and assess.

Government has no plans to conduct a formal review of the 2017 reforms to the Electronic Communications Code before commencing the remaining sections of the 2022 Act.