Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): I welcome Gareth Elliott, Tom Sheppherd and Nick Speed, who are representatives of Mobile UK, and Will Osborne and Sean McHenry, who are representatives of the Mobile Infrastructure Forum. Gentlemen, you are very welcome. You have five to 10 minutes, however you want to split that between yourselves, and then we will open up to questions from members.

Mr Gareth Elliott (Mobile UK): Thank you for having us here. Mobile connectivity is an important topic. The Mobile UK witnesses are from the operators BT, EE and VodafoneThree — Virgin Media O2 wanted to be here, but we were restricted in the number we could bring. The Mobile Infrastructure Forum witnesses are from Mobile Broadband Network Ltd (MBNL) and Cornerstone. Two other members of the forum are the Wireless Infrastructure Group and Cellnex.

We are here to talk about the roll-out of mobile infrastructure across Northern Ireland and the inherent barriers that we see to that. The investment that is happening across the industry at the moment is significant. We recently had a merger of Vodafone and Three, which is bringing an £11 billion commitment up to 2030. A mobile transformation plan in Virgin Media O2 is costing £700 million annually, and EE is expanding 5G to 99% of the population. Therefore, significant investment is being made, and it will, in the first instance, go where there is less friction. One thing that we are concerned about is that the planning system in Northern Ireland is adding significant friction to our ability to deploy that investment quickly.

We live in a world in which a mobile is no longer a luxury; it is very much part of our everyday lives. We need it for accessing bank accounts and GP consultations through mobile apps. Ambulances and blue-light services are connected by mobile signals. A total of 95% of jobs are now available only online. In a world of digital inclusion, 25% of people access the internet only through their mobile phone. As part of the cost-of-living crisis that began during COVID, some people have had to choose between broadband or mobile if they cannot have both, and they tend to stick with mobile. Therefore, digital inclusion is a big point to raise, and equal to that is the importance of mobile connectivity.

One of the issues here — and we will go into them in more detail — is the timelines for decisions being beyond 12 months — in some case, they are taking beyond five years. That has impacted on the roll-out of the Shared Rural Network (SRN), where investment that was earmarked for Ireland could not be made here because we could not get the proposal through the planning system. We are talking about millions of pounds of inward investment not being invested.

There is policy stagnation. We have guidance that is woefully out of date. The development control advice note (DCAN) 14 was implemented in 2008. That was when 3G was being installed. We are now using 4G, 5G and 5G standalone and looking beyond that.

We have fragmented leadership. We are looking for leadership on how to take this forward. Planning legislation here is out of kilter with that in many other nations, including the Republic of Ireland. While we have heard positive noises from the Department for Infrastructure on that and on its desire to work with us, we are still looking for actual frameworks, time frames and vehicles to do that.

Whilst there are positives, we are very much out of kilter with the UK nations and the Republic of Ireland in our ability to do this as quickly as we would like.

Mr Sean McHenry (Mobile Infrastructure Forum): It is nice to see everybody. I am a chartered town planner. I am from the north coast, but have a UK-wide remit, so I have good visibility of how other jurisdictions and local authorities around the country handle things such as this. I am here today because I can talk about the practicalities of this situation and what it means.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that does not have a prior approval system. That system is really beneficial to what we do in that it establishes the principle of development and, perhaps most importantly, attaches a statutory 56-day determination deadline. In real terms, that sees the vast majority of the infrastructure that we look to deploy in England, Scotland and Wales going through the planning system in roughly eight weeks. We sometimes extend that to help address issues, so it might go from two months to three months. Compare that with the situation here, where some of the applications are in the planning system for a year, 18 months or even longer.

In a recent case in Armagh, we submitted an application for a mast at a telephone exchange and beside a PSNI mast.. You would think that that would be a relatively acceptable proposal, but it was in the planning system for three years before it went to a planning committee. The planning committee refused that application, which, as a planning consultant, I feel was not a good decision. We are going to appeal that, but that will probably take between a year and two years. So, something that we would probably get through in other jurisdictions in two to three months will take three, four or potentially five years here. With the sort of investment that Gareth is talking about, that will be a massive blocker in the deployment of the infrastructure. I mentioned that a prior approval system would have made that process faster. I almost have a little bit of pity for the officers and members of the planning committee who refused that. As I say, I felt that it was a bad decision, but they can only make decisions based on the material planning guidance and policy in front of them, and that policy and guidance is completely out of date in the context of the modern infrastructure that we need. Things need to be bigger now, and, for International Commission of Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) reasons, we are using a different spectrum that directly influences the siting and design. The committee members are doing their assessment based on guidance that was for a network in 2008, not a network in 2026.

When it comes to the policy element and the weight that decision makers attach to benefits versus harm, they base that on the strategic planning policy statement (SPPS), which was written back in 2015 but, in my view, merely amalgamated the previous planning policy statements without properly updating them. Society is now dependent on connectivity, and there are various benefits and the applications that come with that did not exist when the policy was written. It is chalk and cheese. Our view is that the telecoms element of the SPPS needs to be updated to reflect society's dependence, the new benefits and the social and economic importance of connectivity that exists now but did not exist then.

To summarise, we need real leadership and ownership in looking at permitted development (PD) legislation and planning guidance and in looking at the more technical elements and the policy so that the appropriate weight can be put on all the relevant material considerations in a decision-making process. In my view, Northern Ireland is already miles behind the curve when compared with the other UK jurisdictions. At the moment, for example, England is consulting on further updates to its permitted development legislation and further updates to the national planning policy framework (NPPF). As part of the permitted development consultation, they have asked the question about updating their guidance as well. They did that only a matter of years ago, so those other jurisdictions are moving further and further ahead. There are conversations happening with the Welsh Government that may see them moving ahead as well. Northern Ireland is already behind, and it will get much further behind if there is not tangible ownership driving the changes that I have suggested.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): Does anyone from Mobile UK want to say anything at this stage before we go into questions?

Mr Nick Speed (Mobile UK): Thanks, Committee. I am Nick Speed from BT/EE Group. It is great to be here. We had a conversation with the Chair about these issues, and I thank you for giving us the opportunity to outline some of Mobile UK's concerns.

I will give you a couple of practical examples of the challenges that the people who are building and maintaining our networks face. We have been making big investments in our networks, as Gareth mentioned. We have a stated ambition to get 5G+ to 99% of the population by 2030, and, obviously, that requires significant investment. I am going to talk a bit about the practical challenges that we face in the planning applications and in the modernisation of our sites. In most of the examples that we are talking about, we want to upgrade current sites and current masts so that they can deliver 5G+.

Ahead of coming to see you today, I spoke to the people who build and maintain our networks. They report that we currently face challenges with the length of time that applications take in comparison with other parts of the country. There were a couple of recent examples in Belfast harbour, where we were looking to build a new site so that we could support the development of driverless vehicles in the harbour and the harbour's ambitions to be a leader in smart logistics. We needed two applications there. One took eight and a half months and the another took 10 and a half months. My colleagues are concerned that they will be dealing with lengthy timescales for new applications.

What does that mean for us? Our ambition is to make sure that we are the best network in the UK, and that means that we set targets for ourselves. We set a target of getting 5G standalone (5GSA) to 99% of the population by 2030, and, in doing so, we know that it will take us a lot longer to do the work here to be able to deliver against that target. Therefore, we have to build in to our ambitions the fact that we know that it is going to take longer for us to achieve that goal and aim here because we want to make sure that our customers are served well everywhere.

I will talk a bit more about the challenges that people talked about of modernising the sites. There are currently 70 sites in Northern Ireland that we would like to be able to modernise. We will be looking to modernise those, but we find that there is a problem for us in that many of the sites that we are looking to upgrade are already at capacity. They already have so much kit on them from our network and other networks that it will be very difficult. Those masts are at capacity with what they can deliver. That means that we will need to look at other sites across the industry to be able to deliver the increased capacity that is required to serve our customers. That needs a coordinated approach so that we can start to look at other sites. In other areas, we find that we are able to work with organisations in the public sector to locate sites and masts in some of their properties. A joined-up approach here would enable us to do that rather than having to keep relying on the same people and the same infrastructure to load more kit onto. That is a challenge for us.

It is a really timely conversation to be having. Yesterday, the UK Government Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) announced a mobile market review, and, at BT Group, we have calling for that for some time. That is a way for us to look at how we get the investment that is needed to allow the UK to compete with other countries in Europe by having the mobile network that will give world-class mobile network connectivity. It is really important to the economy, not just with some of the things that we want to do to take forward new opportunities in advanced manufacturing and creative industries but in supporting transport, improving productivity when people are on trains and on roads. Increasingly, people want to be connected while they are mobile. All of those things will rest on whether we can unlock the investment that we know is there.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): Thanks, Nick. Does anyone else want to come in before we go to questions?

Mr Tom Sheppherd (Mobile UK): I will jump in, if that is OK. Thanks, Committee. I am from VodafoneThree. As Gareth mentioned, we went through our formal merger process, which took a couple of years and was formally signed in June 2025. Since that, we have made public some figures on how much we are going to invest — £11 billion. That is fully regulated, so we have to hit those targets. We have milestones every year on which we have to report to Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on how many sites we upgrade, how many more people we have been covering with 5G standalone and with 4G. The first check-in, as we call it, is April 2028. If we do not hit our regulated targets, we will be subject to 10% turnover fines, so we have to do hit them.

That means that we are under a time pressure that started in June. We have already delivered lots of upgrades across Northern Ireland, but they were upgrades to existing infrastructure that did not require full planning applications. Over 45% of the upgrades will have to go through a full planning process, which means, as Nick mentioned, that we will deliver in the places where there is least friction. We have to do it, otherwise we will be subject to fines.

That is the context of where VodafoneThree is in Northern Ireland. We want to build in those areas and deliver the network that people in Northern Ireland deserve, but we need a little bit of help and guidance from the Department.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): OK. Thanks, Tom.

Mr Will Osborne (Mobile Infrastructure Forum): Thank you for the opportunity. I am from MBNL, which is a joint venture owned by EE and Three. The mobile industry can be a little bit confusing because of the different company names and mergers; I appreciate that that can bring confusion. However, we are here representing all the major mobile operators, the infrastructure providers and the industry bodies. We have set out so far that there is an opportunity for Northern Ireland that, for various reasons, it has missed over the past 15 to 20 years. Technology, though, has not missed out or stood still. We are upgrading all our base stations. We are having to deploy further new sites, and 5G and 5G standalone are being rolled out more and more. The expectation is that connectivity will be ubiquitous. There is now an opportunity to change things in Northern Ireland to make sure that we can roll it out quicker, easier and simpler, at less cost and with certainty of deployment. We have mentioned the timelines that we have to meet, and they are critical. It is really important that we can work with you to see whether we can achieve those.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): Thank you. If you are happy, we will move to questions.

Gareth, you said at the start that the infrastructure aspects of mobile networks cannot be overstated. The general public — our constituents — expect it to be like running water: it has to be there all the time at full capacity and coverage. I want to dive into some of the issues that you face as an industry. Before I do that, I will say that it is difficult not to be parochial about these issues. Last year, I posted on social media to ask people for their feedback. I fed the results of that directly back to the providers individually, but some of it had to be deleted because expletives were used about the coverage. I will not use those words in the open session today, but you will be aware of that. Those people were not looking 5G; they were looking a bar of coverage and 3G or 4G.

I would like some feedback from you. Given the amount of capacity that we have —. In areas where there is said to be 99% coverage for 4G and phone calls, there is, quite often, zero coverage or one bar. In my constituency, there are massive black spots in Carrickfergus, Greenisland, Ballycarry, Islandmagee — I could go on, yet, when people in those places go on to the website, it tells them that they have full coverage. Unfortunately, those people do not come to you, because they find it difficult to get in touch with you, so they come to me, hence I am raising it today. I have relayed the feedback to you, and, to be fair to you, in a couple of cases, you have come back and articulated the reasons and what investment will be made there. Are those issues down to a lack of investment in infrastructure in those areas, or do you need more people to flag up that they do not have coverage? I cannot understand how, in 2026, there are key urban areas that have massive black spots, which seem to be growing rather than reducing. Is that fair?

Mr Elliott: You ask whether is a lack of investment. I will flip that: we are trying to invest, and we are looking to do that more quickly.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): I appreciate that, Gareth. However, it says on the website that there is 99·9% coverage, and people tell me that they cannot get a bar. People are being sold something —.

Mr Elliott: I understand that, but we are looking at upgrades. We are looking to add capacity to the system. There is coverage, but people may have trouble because the capacity is not what it needs to be. That is why we are upgrading the existing network — that is an essential element. I will give an example. We are feeding into the consultation on permitted development rights in England, which is around 50 pages long. A lot of it is about upgrades and making sure that we can add capacity. We understand and are aware of that. On the shared rural network, roughly £30 million should have gone to Northern Ireland for physical infrastructure, but, because we could not get through the planning system and meet the deadlines, that money has gone elsewhere. That would have been up and ready, and you would be experiencing the benefits of that, but, again, the planning system meant that that did not happen.

Is there a lack of investment? We are here today to say, "We can make this investment. We want to put it in quickly". We have talked about the legal requirements as part of the merger. We need to get the barriers out of the way so that we can improve services and provide the capacity and coverage that your constituents want. However, we need to get that friction out of the way. That is where we are. We are at an inflection point here. As I said, I would love to show people that this is an opportunity. If we can take that opportunity, Northern Ireland can not only upgrade its planning system but, in some ways, improve it beyond what we have elsewhere. In every other nation of the UK, we have this conversation and we have a strategy. The mobile market review has just been published in England. We do not have a strategy here. The mobile action plan, which is the closest that we have to a strategy, is coming to an end. We do not know what will happen after that. We want to ensure that the discussions that we have with Departments continue. We want to ensure that they are formalised and that there are time frames. I sympathise with what you are hearing from constituents, but, equally, we have come here today to say, "We want to improve that. We want to invest in Northern Ireland. Please help us to overcome the barriers that exist".

Mr Stewart: Absolutely. We, as a Committee, will not be found wanting in helping you to be that voice and to articulate the message to the Department that there must be as much streamlining as possible to enable as much investment as possible to be made in the infrastructure. However, at this stage, I am articulating that I got 600 or 700 messages and comments from people — and not necessarily people who live in the middle of nowhere — who expect, at the very least, basic coverage in areas where the providers tell them, when they pay for their bills, that coverage is 99.9% and that they are not in a black spot area. How does that happen?

Mr McHenry: Part of the issue in what you describe is that people think — historically, this would have been correct — that mobile infrastructure puts out coverage. You specifically referenced urban areas, where there is high density of devices and people. There is coverage there, but, with the new applications, which are really data-hungry, and the increasing number of devices — it is not just phones, and some people have two of those, but sensors etc — capacity is becoming a bigger issue for us than coverage. The signal checkers say, "Yes, there is coverage", but they do not give the full picture of capacity. The simplest way to think about it is that, if you have a water pipe, only a certain amount of water can go through that pipe before it starts to back up. Our networks are exactly the same.

Especially in urban areas, such as Newry and Belfast, we need to build more sites. We need to upgrade the existing sites and build additional infrastructure in order to build capacity into the network where there is already coverage. There is a differential between those two things, and that is why you see urban areas that have coverage but not capacity. When you go to a football stadium, you will have coverage, but, at half-time, if you try to do something on your phone, it will buffer and buffer and buffer. The coverage is there, but the capacity is not. That is becoming a problem in everyday life for people in urban areas. We want to build sites, but the problem is, as Gareth said, that we struggle to get through the planning system within reasonable time frames.

I will give another example, which you probably saw all over the news during the summer. There were various arson attacks around Belfast; sites were burned down in west Belfast. That caused huge uproar from people who had come to depend on that network, such as taxi firms and hospitals that could not get in contact with staff who were on call. Some local politicians reached out to us, pointing out exactly the issues that you have referred to, because those sites had gone down. We said to them, "Listen, we want to reinstate those sites as quickly as we possibly can to get services back up for your constituents". Some of those sites were so badly damaged, however, that we could not just reinstate them; we had to find a whole replacement site. I had to explain to them that, as we tried to get a replacement site through the planning process, those constituents could go without service for 18 months to two years because of the barriers that we would face, not because we were being slow to implement that. The same applies to your situation. Thankfully, in that case, those local politicians got us in front of Belfast City Council. We were able to have good conversations with the planning department and estates department, and that started to move things forward. However, it still needs overarching planning policy legislation and guidance from DFI.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): Absolutely. I want to go back to a point that Sean or Gareth made about the prior approval system. What engagement have you had with the Department regarding formulation of centralised planning policy? You talked about the flexibility that Belfast City Council was able to show, with elected reps getting on board. Are some of the 11 councils working as well as they possibly can under the current guidance, and are others, maybe, lagging behind? Is there a postcode lottery with the approach?

Mr McHenry: You have to remember that any council can only make planning determinations based on the policy and guidance that is in front of it. If a council deviates from that, it leaves itself open to judicial review, so it will not. The councils can only do so much. It is not that Belfast City Council is being lenient — there are still plenty of situations in Belfast where things are going slowly, as Nick said. We need the guidance to be updated.

We have had discussions with DFI civil servants on the prior approval process. There seems to be a willingness and an openness to bring that forward, but, in my view, it needs ownership to be driven through and progressed. There has been pushback on it in the past, but we want to address that.

On timescales, I admit that it is not always the fault of councils; in some cases, it is the statutory consultees, such as the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA), which appears to be under-resourced. A council cannot issue a decision until it gets responses from the statutory consultees. If the statutory consultees are taking months and months and months, the council cannot issue its decision, and there is a knock-on effect. It needs to be looked at in that context as well.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): Absolutely.

Mr Elliott: The key element here is the length of time that it takes to have these discussions. A mobile action plan has existed for three years, and it has been difficult to get engagement within that. When the mast attacks happened, the Ministers engaged with us, and that was a fruitful discussion. Hopefully, that will be the case in these discussions with the Department.

On the leadership point, why does it take so long over here? The Department for the Economy is the lead on telecoms, the Department for Infrastructure leads on planning, the Department for Communities deals with local and the Department of Finance has the public assets, yet it is a reserved matter as part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). We are told that it cannot always be discussed because it is a reserved matter, but we had Project Stratum, for example, which was a telecoms-led project, and it went very well. The fixed element of broadband coverage over here is fantastic. Clearly, it can happen. We are asking for the same for mobile coverage. There is no element of digital infrastructure in the Programme for Government. It is about the length of time that it takes to get to the discussions and move things forward. We welcome the fact that we now know that we will have discussions, but we do not have any time frame. We do not have any vehicle to take those discussions forward, albeit we understand that they will happen, which is fantastic.

Your planning approvals rates are quite high — yes — but it is about the length of time that they take. If your planning process takes two or three years, in that time you do not have the capacity and coverage that we have talked about. You talked about your residents and where they are. Often, there will be a planning application in the system that could be rectified, but we cannot get it through the system. If the final decision is a rejection, we have to go back in for another two or three years before we will get another decision. While approval rates might be positive, it is about the length of time that it takes between having the discussion and getting the strategy through and then getting the legislative change. All nations across the UK are looking at this now and putting it into strategies. We have a 5G strategy in Scotland, there is a mobile action plan in Wales and the mobile market review has just been published in England. We had a mobile action plan over here, but it is being wound down, so what is next? We are keen to understand that.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): We hear, time and time again, that one of the biggest frustrations for those making investment in Northern Ireland is how complex and slow the planning process is. It is not fit for purpose. The time that it takes for statutory consultees to come back, which delays the process, means that it is not fit for purpose. You talked about £30 million-plus of investment that should have been made. Our constituents are affected because of the lack of investment in coverage. We totally get it.

Given the complexity of who has remit for it, outside of planning, would there be any merit in having a cross-departmental working group, including the UK Government and with input from yourselves, that is tasked with doing a short, sharp piece on the issue to try to deliver what is needed? A multitude of people have a role, and, clearly, it is not working. I am interested to hear your thoughts on that.

Mr Elliott: I would like to take the positive: we have been told that the Department for Infrastructure wants to engage with the industry on a bilateral level to discuss this. Proposals have been put forward, and we have responded to them, on the basis of the potential for permitted development reforms. We are now asking what, when and how. If a wider discussion is needed, we are happy to have that. We stand ready, and we are here today because we want to have those discussions and move things forward. We are at a pivotal moment in industry investment and roll-out. As I said, 5G and 5G standalone deployment is happening. We have 2G and 3G switch-off, which, in essence, means retiring those legacy technologies and upgrading them to 4G and 5G. All of that is critical investment. We talk about whether there is investment or not; we are saying that there is investment, we want to get it out and we want Northern Ireland to benefit from that too.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): Before I bring Nick in, I will say that I will be proposing, on the back of today's session, that we write to the Department to ask when that engagement will happen. That is essential. It is lamentable that it is taking so long, given how pressing and important the investment is for Northern Ireland's digital comms. We will ask that question on your behalf, and I know that you will continue to lobby from your end.

Mr Speed: I will go back a bit to the constituent experience that you relayed. We share your frustration that people find that the networks are not serving them in the way that they should. The investment that we are talking about today is designed to reduce the number of times when there could be such frustrations for your constituents. Everyone wants to be mindful of not building infrastructure just for the sake of it, but, given how technology is moving on, investment can help us to address the situation, if we have the right environment to allow us to make that investment.

I will give a couple of examples. In autumn last year, for the first time anywhere over any network, we started to deploy technologies that mean that, if one mast is down and the neighbouring mast has spare capacity, it can provide capacity to that area. The technology that allows pairing and sharing of masts will come to Northern Ireland in the spring. That is a way of making sure that we manage infrastructure better. Then, if there is a failure on a mast for whatever reason, you have capacity built in. We also want to put power generators on more of our masts. A power failure can be one of the reasons why some of your constituents experience loss of service, so we have a massive programme to increase the number of masts with generators that can kick in as soon as there is a power cut.

We realise how important all of this is and how frustrating it is when things go wrong. Several of you around the table have contacted me when things have gone wrong and said that it is important that we have the mechanisms in place to identify a failure when it happens.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): Yes. It is equally important that our constituents feed through to us and to you, so that you are aware of where the investment needs to be made.

Before I move to other members, I have a question that Sean or Gareth might answer. In an ideal world with the right planning process and everything else in place, as opposed to where we stand today, how quickly could we roll out what you want to roll out? How long will it take for the investment that you want to see to be made in Northern Ireland? Is it possible to spell that out?

Mr McHenry: That is a difficult one. I can give you a rough comparison based on an individual site. You can then quantify it by multiplying that by the number of sites that we have, which is in the hundreds, if not thousands, across the various operators. I can genuinely get applications through — in fact, you know what, there are some upgrade proposals in GB for which I do not even need to make an application for prior approval. They are permitted development straight away; they do not even need to go near a planning authority other than to give notification that we are doing the work. That is notification — you are not asking for permission — and I can go straight to build after 28 days. Here, in a lot of cases, I have to go through the full planning process, which takes almost a year.

Our ask is to not just bring in the prior approval system but to reduce restriction to the point where some of the stuff goes straight to permitted development, and there is no need for any application because it is so minor. That would have the benefit that we could roll things out significantly quicker, and it would be more cost-effective and more efficient. It would have the additional benefit of removing from the desks of your councils, which are already under-resourced and under pressure, a huge volume of applications that, inevitably, would have been approved anyway. It would free up resource for councils to spend time on other proposals, such as for wind farms and housing.

There are certain sites that I can get through in GB in 28 days, but, here, they could take a year. Similarly, in GB, if a new site is under the prior approval system, it would take 56 days; here, it would take at least a year.

Planning is slowed up, but planning is just the front end of it. The next stage — i.e. the conversations with landowners — can take months and months. We cannot even start those negotiations until the planning piece is done. Then, you have to apply to get connected to electricity, which also takes time. There are various elements that depend on the planning system. If planning is not done quickly, that slows the whole thing down. The difference is that something that could take literally a matter of months in GB could take years here. That is just for one site. If you upscale that and multiply it across the hundreds, if not thousands, of sites that we are looking to upgrade as part of the investment, you can imagine the kind of difference in cost and speed.

Mr Sheppherd: I will add some figures to that. VodafoneThree commissioned independent research by WPI Economics on how much 5G deployment across operators would add to the gross value of the Northern Irish economy. It found that, under the current planning restrictions, it would be worth £1·6 billion by 2035. That figure would rise to £2·2 billion if we were to have the planning reform that VodafoneThree, Mobile UK and the Mobile Infrastructure Forum advocate. That is the economic value based on research that was carried out.

Mr Elliott: You are hearing that the prior approval system is critical. It takes us from years to months to days. It is 56 days or 28 days without notification, which is significantly faster. We do not have that here. A prior approval system exists in Scotland, Wales and England, and it is not contentious there. Resources will be put back into councils. If councils are not dealing with planning applications that take years, and they do not have to get consultees back in etc, that will provide them with more resources. There will be more money in the system, because councils will not be dealing with all applications in the way that they do and for the length of time that they are at the moment.

This is a big part of the conversation that we are having in other jurisdictions. That is why we are looking to improve it again. Permitted development rights legislation was brought in here in 2020. In England and Scotland, we have had improvements to that already, and we are looking to improve it again, because of the changes that have happened.

It is not because we just want to ride roughshod over a planning system — that is not the case. There are rules in place that mean that things have to look the way that they do and be sited where they are. It is more about changing technologies. There is the changing of masts. One of our asks is for more sharing, which would require having a bigger mast. If we want to put 5G, 4G and other technologies on to it, we will need to put more antennae on that mast. Again, there are unintended consequences in the current planning system. If you put a couple of antennae on an existing mast, we need to go into full planning. The unintended consequence there is that it would actually then be more beneficial to find a new site than to use one that is already in existence.

Time is the issue. Time, resource and cost is not just on us as an industry but on local authorities. Not only could we get it in quicker, but that would free up resources.

Mr McHenry: There is a really good example, which will apply to hundreds of these types of sites, where a minor tweak to the legislation would save a massive amount of time. Currently, if I need to replace a street works pole in the highway, and the replacement site needs a slightly bigger foundation whereby it cannot go on that exact route, the PD regulations allow us to move it within 6 metres of its current location. If it is moved 6·1 metres, I will need an application. In England and Wales, you do not have that defined parameter. There are lots of cases in which we need to move the sites more than six metres. We put them as close as possible: they might be 6·5 or 7 metres away, but they are still reasonably close. We might have to move them that distance because there are underground services and our slightly bigger foundation will impact them. The difference is that, in England and Wales, there would just be a permitted development notification of 28 days for that minor relocation. Here, if it is beyond 6 metres, you get into that really arduous, onerous, long, full planning process, which could take a year. That is just for the most minor little tweak. In England and Wales, that is not even accounted for by prior approval system; it is straight to permitted development. That shows you one barrier to upgrading a single site and how one small tweak could make it go significantly faster.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): Thank you, guys. Sorry for being parochial, by the way, but it would be remiss of me not to raise those issues on behalf of my constituents. I am buoyant that investment will be coming into those areas, if we can streamline that even further.

The rest of the Committee are like coiled springs. Stephen will come in first.

Mr Dunne: Thank you, folks, for your presentation. I have met a number of you. I recognise a few names from emails as well; it is good to put faces to those names.

Digital connectivity is so important. I appreciate the well-made points about capacity and coverage. We all have so many devices now, as you pointed out, and the demands on networks have never been greater. To go back to permitted development, I will give an example of an issue that we had a number of years ago in Bangor in my constituency. A proposal was submitted to put a large mast in a very high-density residential area. It was to be on a public footpath — a DFI footpath. That caused great uproar locally. There needs to be balance. Yes: I appreciate the demand — we all want and need high connectivity — but that caused a lot of local concern. I have concerns about a prior approval system whereby that mast could have just been put up without any consultation. That process went on, and the planning committee then turned down the application. Very close to that site were acres and acres of green fields, which would have been much better suited to having the mast. I suppose that my question is this: was the DFI footpath chosen as the site because that was a cheaper option than going to a private landowner?

Mr McHenry: I do not know that specific site.

Mr Dunne: No: I appreciate that.

Mr McHenry: All that I can say is that the prior approval system that we are looking towards still facilitates a decision-making process and the consultation to which you refer —.

Mr Dunne: That is so important as well.

Mr McHenry: Exactly. For example, across the water, before I submit an application for prior approval, we will do what we call best practice consultation. That is defined in a code of best practice, which, incidentally, we want to work with the Department to create here to partner a change in the legislation. Pre-application, we consult and work with ward councillors, MLAs, MPs, schools, community or parish councils etc. When the application goes in, we still need to go through a very robust sequential test, as we call it, where we look at numerous discounted options in and around the search area. We, effectively, try to present the option that, while it might not be perfect, is the best and most viable site for the service that we need to deliver. That is then assessed by the planning authority, and there is still scope to refuse it.

In that process, as well as our pre-application consultation, the local authority will do its own consultation. There will be an advertisement in the newspaper. It will put up a site notice and do mail drops to nearby residents. All those residents will have the ability to input into that, as will the statutory consultees, which, here, would be Roads etc. Introduction of a prior approval process does not mean that we can go and do what we want; it just means that there is a defined timescale. The consultation with us and the local authority still happens, and there is still the ability to say no if something is entirely inappropriate.

Mr Dunne: Where does that ability lie? Is it with the council planning committee or —?

Mr McHenry: Every council will have its own scheme of delegation. If something is going to be refused, I would expect that most of that be done via delegation to the council's planning officer, but there will be the ability for a planning committee to call it in. For example, if a planning officer were going to approve something and a local councillor thought that it was inappropriate, he would have the ability to call that in to be considered by a planning committee. That mechanism exists under prior approval in the same way that it does in full planning. A prior approval process does not mean relinquishment of any of that control.

You asked why we would put it on the highway rather than a greenfield site.

It would certainly have been nothing to do with the cost; I assure you of that. There is a lot of cost in rerouting services and stuff when you are on the highway as well. The truth is that some landowners simply do not want to host us, and, if they say no, we do not have the —.

Mr Dunne: I appreciate that.

Mr McHenry: There is the electronic communications code, but we want to get the consensual agreement of landowners, and, if a landowner who owns a greenfield site says, "No, absolutely, I am not hosting you, because it is likely that I will get a lot of backlash from a community", we have to move and find an alternative solution.

Mr Dunne: I appreciate that, but it needs to be located close to the properties too. That is the challenge, is it not?

Mr McHenry: With the spectrums that are now being used for 5G, they are of a much higher frequency, which means that they do not propagate very far and do not propagate through materials. It is all just physics. That means that we need to be directly where the demand is. If you have a dense, residential area, all of which wants connectivity, we now have to site within that residential area; whereas, in the past, we could have sited in a field or an industrial area and beamed the service back in. With the principles of 5G connectivity, that is not possible. Again, to explain that, we need an updated DCAN 14 document that is fit for purpose for this modern infrastructure, not something written in 2008 before it even existed.

Mr Dunne: With the technology obviously advancing, are the 20-metre to 30-metre masts still the only option for you to ultimately improve connectivity?

Mr McHenry: It is horses for courses. Everything that we do is bespoke, in the sense that we will look at a certain area, where the trees and buildings are, the topography and where we are trying to service. We will propose a site, in its location and design, depending on those very localised nuances and constraints. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to it.

Mr Dunne: I appreciate that there is great connectivity in many areas, but there is —.

Mr Elliott: May I say something about the height aspect? It is worth understanding that, the higher a mast is, the broader an area it can cover. The more you bring it in, the more infrastructure you need. It is always an interesting thing. In areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks, we have more restrictive planning, which effectively means that we need more masts because we cannot go higher. Height helps with propagation. Equally, in suburban areas where we do not have buildings with rooftops, we need a mast that gets above those buildings; again, one of the aspects that we are looking at is having 20-metre masts in suburban areas. Height is important, but, in urban areas, we need denser networks as well, because, as Sean said, the newer technologies of 5G and 5GSA do not propagate as far as others.

Mr Dunne: I appreciate that. There are areas, even five minutes behind this Building, in the Craigantlet area, which I represent, for example, where the signal is terrible and black spots exist. It is not just at one end of the Province. One of the closest towns to this Building, Holywood, has a terrible mobile signal.

Mr Elliott: It is important to understand that, where we put the masts or where we designate them, it is because there is demand, and they are needed in those areas. Moving them out of those areas means that demand that needs it will have less ability to exploit that demand that is there. As Sean said, we go through such rigours to choose those locations.

I want to touch on the code of best practice. We do not have a code of best practice in Northern Ireland. There is one in all the other jurisdictions, and they are penned by the Departments. The Welsh Government publish a code of best practice; DSIT publishes a code of best practice in England and Scotland. We are looking for one here. It sets the rules of the game. It is exactly what you can look at to judge whether we are working to what we have said we will. We take the code of practice as a very important piece of work. Here, our concern at the moment is that there is no lead that wants to work with us to build a code of practice and publish it. If a departmental lead does not run that, our concern is that it has no weight.

Mr Dunne: I appreciate that. Obviously, the Infrastructure and Economy Departments have a key role. What level of engagement have you had with the Ministers? Do you feel that they are taking a sufficiently active interest in it? Do you think that they could do more from the commitment that they have given you? There is the mobile action plan and the NI barrier busting task force (NIBBTF), which is quite a mouthful. How are they going? Are they effective?

Mr Elliott: It is worth pointing out that, at the moment, from what we understand, the Northern Ireland barrier busting task force and the mobile action plan are coming to an end. That is why I stress that we want to understand what is next. What is the strategy for mobile for Northern Ireland? There has been engagement: over the past four or five months, we met the Minister for the Economy and Minister for Infrastructure. We have a commitment that it will be looked at, and we have seen some proposals for going forward. We received communication recently that they want to have bilateral discussions with the industry, and we are keen to do. We want to make sure that that is formalised and that we have dates, times and a vehicle to do that.

Mr Dunne: You spoke about vandalism in some areas. We saw that in parts of Belfast — in west Belfast, for example — and obviously that is illegal. Is enough being done, particularly at ministerial level, to highlight the dangers and issues around that or could more be done?

Mr McHenry: There was a useful article by Caoimhe Archibald in the 'Andersonstown News' about the arson attacks at that time. More communication is always beneficial. It is a tough one. Are the people with the mindset who are going to do that damage for the reasons that they have in their head really going to listen to what is being said? Probably not. However, communication certainly helps. The more there is about how impactful that sort of damage is to communities, the more it almost begins to police itself, because more people report it and keep an eye out for it. Therefore, more communication is certainly welcome.

We have had conversations with the PSNI and with Belfast City Council, which said, "Why are you putting those sites on the streets? Why do you not put them on a rooftop?". In some case, there are no rooftops to put them on, and they have to go there. However, it has facilitated conversations in which Belfast City Council said, "We have a building nearby. Why do you not go on our rooftop? That would be a way to negate that from happening because it is not so easy to get at", and we have done that. Every cloud has a silver lining, and that facilitated that conversation.

Going back to the mobile action plan, the example that I just gave is a perfect example of the use of public-sector assets. One of the main aspects of the mobile action plan was to allow us more use of public-sector assets. I do not think that we got too far on that, either, did we, Gareth? That would have been really helpful.

Mr Dunne: Thanks, gentlemen.

Mr Harvey: We could maybe say that priority was given to broadband. Would it now be better to give more attention to mobile? Furthermore, have you found the mobile action plan and the pathway to progress useful?

Mr Elliott: I will answer, though others may come in. Priority is where we are at. We are seeing across other jurisdictions and in the Republic that mobile is now very much considered to be a part of what they want to do. The mobile market review in England has put that up as a critical point. It is critical national infrastructure. It is no longer a luxury. If we look at where technologies are going in how we use mobile phones and with the internet of things, we that everything is now essentially connected even without a device with a screen. We live in a world where this is important. Project Stratum has been really impressive in Northern Ireland. We now need to get a strategy for mobile.

Mr Speed: The mobile market review that was announced yesterday is going to be the key to that. I can share with the Committee a report that we commissioned last year to look at the economic benefits that could be unlocked. It was good to see that happen yesterday, and it focuses the mind everywhere on what we can do to make sure that we are reaching the potential.

A lot of comparisons have been made today with what is happening in different parts of the UK. In the report, we wanted to look at how the UK was faring internationally as well. There are some comparisons with what is happening elsewhere in the world that are a wake-up call for us all. We do now need to pay more attention to mobile to follow up on the success that you have had locally with rolling out the broadband network. We need both, and we have to help people to understand that. As we suggested, more and more people are wanting connectivity when on the move as well as when at a fixed location.

Mr Harvey: You said that there are 70 sites for upgrade. I am not going to ask you to go through them all now, but will you send the Committee the details of where they are? You also mentioned that there will be areas for new masts. Can you let us know where they will be?

I will move on from that. Upgrades are all well and good, and new is good, but a lot of places are experiencing outages: for example, Ballynahinch this morning, again. That is a huge area. I got a message this morning that said that the network is down and to use WhatsApp, so we are back on to broadband. The service in that area is continually breaking down. We first need to maintain what we have before we upgrade. Upgrades may help, but there is a problem that needs to be addressed, because that is happening at least two or three times a month.

Mr McHenry: Every infrastructure company is finding that resilience is a problem, and it will be a bigger problem with climate change and the storms that we have now but did not used to have. Our sites go down because the power to those sites goes down. That is somewhat out of our control. We want to build in resilience by potentially putting solar at the base that can pick up the slack when the mains goes out. We can also use generators in compounds that attenuate the noise, and we can use things other than diesel to power them. We are definitely looking at that because of the storms and the resilience elements that result from them.

Mr Elliott: I will add to that. There are ongoing discussions with the regulators on a UK-wide basis about resilience and how to do that. Equally, we need to think about the practicalities of that. For instance, in rural areas, people often do not want a generator out there, and there may be other ways to look at that. It expands the footprint of a mast if you have a generator on-site, which, once again, can impact on planning. It is about asking, "What is the possibility?". A one-hour battery backup is not very useful if it is out for six hours. Again, we are having those discussions at the moment, and they are very much about how we deal with resilience on a UK-wide basis.

Mr Sheppherd: On your point about our merger plans, I am happy to send Committee members our plans for their constituencies. As you will expect, some of it is commercially sensitive in the context of the other people in the room, but I am happy to share that. When it comes to resilience in the industry, Vodafone Group, of which we are a part, has a partnership with AST SpaceMobile. The extra element on top of resilience is mobile satellite connectivity, but that is rapidly [Inaudible.]

Nick will probably jump in on that as well, but that is an extra element, not just battery backup but how we can have some resilience that is not on the ground, if that makes senses. Again, I am happy to follow up with more information on that.

Mr Harvey: Will, you are responsible for EE, Three and all, so can you elaborate on that, please?

Mr Osborne: The resilience aspect is critical. You mentioned earlier that there are areas with not spots. Anecdotal information about not spots or poor connectivity is complex. As you can imagine, when you set up Wi-Fi in your own home, it is about trying to get the right location and trying to find out whether the kitchen or a back bedroom has connectivity and actually connects to Wi-Fi. Imagine expanding that on a national level and trying to use lots of different frequencies such as 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G. We are switching off 2G and 3G; 4G and 5G work in a very different part of the radio spectrum. It also depends on what type of phone you have, because all of this does not work unless the phone can connect back with the network and with the mast itself. A phone is small with a small battery and a small antenna. You could be in a vehicle, amongst some dense trees covered by leaves or inside a building. We do not know any of that.

I will go back to the original issue about 99% coverage. It may well be that there is 99% coverage outdoor and the person who is complaining is indoors, in a car, their phone is being shielded, their battery is low or they have not updated or upgraded the phone. There are lots of issues that are outside our control, but we are working to see whether we can improve the connectivity. As you said, resilience is one issue — making sure that the site works all the time — and it is then about trying to optimise it to make sure that it works with the right technology. It is also dependent on the end user: where they are, what they are doing and how many of them there are. You may get four bars on your phone but a message saying, "No network available". That means that there are too many people trying to access and the network will not accept any more connections. It is a highly complex situation. To go back to the analogy of setting up your own Wi-Fi, we are doing that, upgrading and putting new technology in all the time. The planning system can only help with that. When we are having all these changes and dealing with a regulatory system that is outdated and behind the devolved regions in Great Britain, we have one hand tied behind our back. This is the opportunity to try to open that up and provide that connectivity.

Mr Harvey: You mentioned power downs. In some cases, that happens when the power is good and the weather is reasonable, so it is within your control.

Mr McHenry: I do not know the specific case that you are talking about. I am sorry for getting a wee bit technical, but all of the sites have to be connected into a network, ideally via fibre: we call it backhaul. Sometimes, that backhaul has to be provided to remote sites via a microwave dish link. That means that you have a site that has fibre backhaul, and it needs to connect, via a microwave dish link, to another site, which is maybe 2, 3, 4 or 5 kilometres away. It is a 300-millimetre dish. There can be a perfect line of sight to the 300-millimetre dish, over a course of 3, 4 or 5 kilometres, but, if I put my hand in front of that dish link, it is enough to bring the whole site down. What can happen in those cases, especially in the summertime, for example, is that trees and branches get in the way of the link and that is what is taking down the site. That is another justification for why we need height. The higher that we can go, the clearer the line of sight and the less likelihood of outages because of a backhaul dish link being blocked.

Mr Harvey: I totally get you. As the Deputy Chair mentioned, you would think that the fault could be found and rectified, if it happens continually. I appreciate your explanation.

Mr Osborne: As an anecdotal example, we had an issue with a site in a city in England: the site kept going down. The engineer went to visit the site, stood there and saw a crane being used in the construction of a building next door. Every time that the crane moved around, it broke the transmission link, and then the site came back on again as it moved. We have no control over those sorts of things, and, in such cases, we need to work with adjacent developers. As Sean said, it could be trees or any manner of things, or it could be that the dish has been hit by the weather, has shifted slightly and is not lined up perfectly with the dish on the other site. We are going out to maintain and improve all those sorts of things, all of the time. Any technical changes that we need to make, such as a slightly bigger dish, a different location or a heavier dish, which means that we need a taller or thicker mast, means going back to the planning system, and that holds things up.

Mr Harvey: It would be good to have a report on that. I would appreciate that.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): Get down to Ballynahinch and look for a crane [Laughter.]

You might find the solution.

I will bring in Cathal after this. Will, those points are well made. The Committee and anyone who has tuned in for this will have learned a lot about how the system works. We take things for granted. I do not know how the internet works, particularly. I just know that, when I want it, it is there. I do not need to know how it works. Let the buyer beware, because a lot of buyers go into mobile phone shops or online, as more and more do, to buy a phone, and, when they see that there is 99·9% coverage, they assume that that is what they are going to get.

Mr Osborne: The assumption may be —.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): They do not know that a branch is going to make a difference or that there will be a difference if they are in their car. Those things are not set out by the salesperson — maybe they should be, or maybe they should not be — but that, unfortunately, is who we deal with daily. Maybe they are slightly unaware of how the process works. That creates frustration, as well.

Mr Osborne: The assumption might be that that area has no coverage, although they have looked on the website. They may come back and say, "This part of the countryside doesn't have any coverage", but, when we drill down to find out what is happening, we can say, "Actually, you're on a different network. If you go on our network, you do have coverage", or maybe it is our network that does not have coverage. There are different networks, and people sign up to different things. There is confusion between our companies — you can imagine the different names and organisations here — but there are only four mobile operators that build and operate masts. You can go into Tesco or online to get a mobile contract. You can go with all manner of organisations and companies — Tesco, Lebara or whichever it is — to get a mobile contract, but you do not know who the network provider is. Nobody really checks to see whether they are on O2, EE or whatever. They think that they got the contract from the company that they bought from, for example, Tesco. When they say that there is no coverage there, it may be that they just need to switch to a different operator and then will have coverage. That could be a solution.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): Hopefully, they are being advised of that when they contact customer services. No doubt they are. If they contact me, which they do regularly, I will direct them that way.

I am conscious of time, gents, and a number of members want to come in.

Mr Boylan: Thank you very much for your presentation. It has been very informative. To be fair, Gareth, from the group, you have sold it well on the challenges. No, I will not be giving permission for antennae and tower cranes; I say that, just in case, from a Committee point of view and as an elected rep, representing the good area of Newry and Armagh. You will be disappointed to hear that. I am mindful that other members have mentioned their own areas.

I am fairly well over the planning system, and my points probably relate to it more than anything else, because that is the key element that you are raising today. I live in a border region, where there are not spots, and a lot of people accept it and move on and do whatever they need to do. Hopefully, at some point, there will be the technology to address all that. You mentioned this, Sean. If I were a councillor and somebody mentioned having a mast on a greenfield site, the first thing to raise its head would be the question of why it needs to be out there, and there would be all the issues and challenges. Local people are entitled to challenge and put in an objection. I cannot understand the issue with a brownfield site that is already established and you doing whatever you do with it. You mentioned the SPPS earlier. You could look at that to try to get some kind of solution through planning resolutions or even legislation permitting development over a two-year or three-year period. If you are going to review the whole policy and go again, it will take a period of time. Have you had a conversation with the Minister for Infrastructure on permitted development rights? Stephen mentioned the barrier busting task force from DFE, and that is important as well.

Mr McHenry: To be honest, the civil servants in DFI and the Minister are probably fed up listening to me make the exact same points that we have made today and the rationale for them. We have had lots of conversations with them, and we had conversations with John O'Dowd and Conor Murphy at the start of last year. We had meetings with Caoimhe Archibald and Liz Kimmins about it here only a few months ago. They are listening. They have given indications that they want to look at it. Our concern, as Gareth touched on, was that that was typically directed via the planning subgroup of the barrier busting task force under the mobile action plan, which was a DFE document. All the keys to the locks that we are talking about today — PD legislation, SPPS and DCAN 14 — are owned by DFI. It would be really useful if DCAN 14 were updated, because all the technical things that we are talking about that apply now, including line of sight and dishes connecting up, could all be explained in a DCAN 14 document to help make decision makers understand why a site has to be here and why it has to be that height and then factor that into their decision-making.

Going back to your question, we have had conversations, and there seems to be a willingness to look at it. Our ask is real ownership on tangible next steps, as England has done in just going straight to a call for evidence, where we can take in all the views of everybody, not just from the industry, and, hopefully, move that forward. There seems to be a willingness, but, especially given that the subgroup of the barrier busting task force seems to be closing down, I would like ownership to move it forward.

Mr Boylan: I appreciate that. I am trying to get at what we can do as a Committee. Do you understand me?

Mr McHenry: Yes.

Mr Boylan: It is interesting to hear what you said about what the council did, how the council made the decision and how Planning Service made the decision. That is fine. With the resources from NIEA, we get that right across the board, so we have a good understanding of that.

How can the Committee work with the Minister to move it forward for you? That is the point that I was trying to get at. I have heard all the arguments, and you articulated them well. We could talk all day about the complaints that we get and everything else. Your list of asks in your submission includes PD rights and digital champions in the councils. Those may sit outside the remit of the Committee, but could be part of a legislative process. That is the kind of detail that we want to get. You wanted to have real conversations about what the Committee can do, and it has been a good conversation. Following the session, Committee members will talk to the Chair about what we can do to improve the situation, because we all get those complaints. I am not arguing about the technologies or who provides them. There are challenges, and the Committee has to ask how the process can be moved forward.

Mr Elliott: Going back to Sean's point, we want the next steps to be tangible. We want to know when it will happen and through what vehicle. I emphasise to the Committee that we are willing to put the effort in. I am sitting on a 50-page response to the permitted development rights consultation in England, which is actually a cut through, as some of our members' response documents are over 100 pages. That shows the effort that we want to put in. It is important that we have investment from the operators here, who are standing ready to do that. We want to get to that situation. We will put the effort in and complete the consultation, highlighting what needs to change and where it needs to change. It is not up to us, of course. We will provide an opinion, but it is up to the Departments and the Ministers to decide when to take that forward. As Sean said, it is just a question of how and when we can do the work, because we stand ready to do it. We have outlined the issue and the barriers; let us now work through those with them. We have a mobile action plan, and that is winding down: it is a question of what the next steps will be. We have an indication that there will be bilateral discussions with DFI, and that is fantastic. Let's do it: let us get the operators in.

Mr Boylan: I appreciate that. This will be my final question, because I know that other members want to come in and that the session is running on. I agree with you, Gareth, but, if we go after the SPPS, there will be a consultation process and all that. Do you understand me?

Mr Elliott: Yes.

Mr Boylan: You mentioned two or three Departments: DFI, Communities, Finance and everything else. Having listened to your presentation and responses to questions, the Committee is trying to get to the nub of the issue, which seems to be permitted development. The Infrastructure Minister started the trainee planner programme this week, and there are other elements that we need to get at, but that is a slightly different argument. It may hold up the process.

Mr McHenry: I would love to have timescales. If you are asking me for a wish list for what would make a tangible difference, then I would love to see a date being set for a call for evidence for permitted development reform. Even if it were agreed to tomorrow, it would take nine months, with a fair wind, to get legislation through. To accompany the change in legislation, I would like to see an updated guidance document, whether that be an updated DCAN 14 or a new code of best practice. That is always within DFI's control, and we want to help it, as much as we can, to do that. We are willing to put time and resources into helping the Department with that.

I appreciate that updating the SPPS is a much more difficult matter. It is a much bigger document, and it is policy, so more people would need to be brought in, but it can be done. The renewable section of the SPPS was updated relatively recently, which shows that there is scope to update just one section. We could do the same with the telecommunications section. First, however, should be the reform of the PD regulations and updating DCAN 14 or having a new code of best practice.

Mr Boylan: OK. Just —.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): This is your final question.

Mr Boylan: Fair play to the Deputy Chair for letting me in. I have listened to all the answers, and —.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): It is an important topic.

Mr Boylan: It is. The other thing the witnesses mentioned that we are all in favour of is Project Stratum. That has done a lot for us, especially for those of us who represent rural communities. It married everything up and moved things on. If that model can be replicated in some way, that would be fine; that is —.

Mr Dunne: The DUP got you that, Cathal. [Laughter.]

Mr Boylan: Will you put that down in writing there, because I —.

Mr Dunne: The Clerk has that down.

Mr Elliott: Taking the party politics out of it, that is why we are looking to the Executive for a wider 5G strategy for Northern Ireland. I will put this point to you again: this is an opportune time. We are working on a response to a consultation on the national planning policy framework, which is the equivalent of the SPPS. What we are looking for is a consultation on permitted development rights. As part of that, we are looking to update the code of practice. All those discussions are happening now, and all the evidence is being pulled together to respond to that. Now is a perfect time to use all the work that we are doing at the moment for consultations in other jurisdictions for Northern Ireland: we will have those figures and information about the issues to contribute. Now is an opportune time; that is what we are trying to say.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): Cathal, are you happy enough?

Mr Boylan: Well, Chair, I could speak on, but —.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): We could all talk about it at length.

Mr Boylan: Thank you very much.

Mr McHenry: To conclude, I will say that a mobile version of Project Stratum would be brilliant.

Mr Dunne: We will work on that. [Laughter.]

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): We will move on to Justin. Justin, you are never parochial, are you?

Mr McNulty: Thanks, Deputy Chair. No, I will be parochial as part of my discussion, for sure. I sense huge exasperation from you. You are all exercised by the challenges that you face. You must be looking over the hedge to the South and over the water to the UK with envy.

You spoke about fragmented leadership. Today, we saw leadership of a different kind in the UK, when the Prime Minister-in-waiting talked about people returning to the office. What are the implications of that for demand on your capacity? On the issue of fragmented leadership, who do you need to see leadership from?

Mr Elliott: It needs to be across the board. The Programme for Government is the strategy for the whole of Northern Ireland, but the phrase "digital infrastructure" is not in it at all. That is where we are looking to: we are looking for it to be from the top down. We are also looking to the DFI, which, as we have said many times, holds a lot of the keys to the locks that Sean mentioned. DFE leads on it as well, so we need coordination across Departments: this is a cross-departmental issue. Think of the Department of Health, too: it is looking to implement 5G in hospitals. It matters across all Departments. I always try to explain it in this way: it is not about the four pillars; we underpin all those pillars. Mobile connectivity is critical to everything that we do now; it is not an add-on. We are very much looking for Northern Ireland to be a place that puts itself out there, saying, "We want world-class connectivity. We need 5G and 5G standalone". That needs to be written into strategies.

We can then look at some of the other matters that we talked about, such as planning. That can be addressed. Local development plans rarely include the word "mobile", even at a local level; the focus is very much on fixed broadband. There needs to be parity now: digital infrastructure, of which mobile is a part. We have done Project Stratum, and that is great, wonderful, excellent and brilliant; now, let us turn to mobile and prioritise that. It is very much a cross-departmental issue: it covers everything that we have talked about. We talked about the social aspects such as digital inclusion and planning, which is, obviously, critical. Planning is the area in which we want to see movement.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): Nick, did you want to come in?

Mr Speed: I will respond, briefly, to your point about the future of work and return to the office, because it links to this. We are looking, today, at how improved connectivity can be used to improve productivity. An interesting observation that I have made from working across the devolved Administrations is that, elsewhere, we are starting to see digital infrastructure being linked more and more into the digital economy piece, bringing in opportunities from AI especially, and being aware of the opportunities of managing AI. There are opportunities to use that in the public sector, but also for improving productivity in our small and medium-sized businesses. We see more of a joined-up approach, linking all those things together, in Edinburgh and Cardiff.

You asked what we would like to see happen. It would be good to know that there was a dedicated Minister to look at this, as an accompaniment to a commitment to giving it a slot in the legislative programme.

Mr McHenry: Some of the statutory consultees are across the Departments. For example, NIEA sits under the DAERA, historical environment division (HED) sits under Communities and telecoms is typically an Economy thing, but the Department for Infrastructure holds the keys to it all. You can see how this spreads across the Departments, but the big two are Economy and Infrastructure. Infrastructure holds all the keys.

Look at how it works elsewhere. The current PD regulations call for evidence in England is being run jointly by DSIT and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). The equivalents here are DFI and DFE, and I would expect a similar partnership and a call for evidence from them for what we are trying to do here.

Mr McNulty: There was a proposal to put a mast beside a play park in Belleeks, south Armagh. Local opposition to that was massive, which is understandable. There is a big fear factor about the potential for radiation from masts. I had that discussion with you in person at our previous meetings. Where is leadership from industry on the education piece around the threats or otherwise of radiation in order to mollify local concerns and opposition to masts?

I am glad that there is a mast on the side of Slieve Gullion, our mystical, mythical mountain. Actually, it is not that I am glad that there is a mast on the side of Slieve Gullion, but rather that I am glad of the coverage that it provides. I do not think that enough effort was made in the planning and construction of that mast. It could have been presented as a local tree, which would have taken away from its being an eyesore. Is nowhere out of bounds for where masts can be sited? Have you no inhibitions about where you site a mast? Is it just a case of net coverage or nothing? Where is the leadership from industry? Do you want to put a mast anywhere? Is nowhere out of bounds?

A big concern now is the permitted development piece. There have to be guard rails for where a mast can be sited.

What is your perspective on what I have outlined?

Mr McHenry: I answered some of that in a previous response. In the permitted development changes that we are asking for, the upgrade stuff consists largely of very minimal works. As Gareth said, the planning success rates are incredibly high. The issue is timing. The fact that the rates are incredibly high shows that they are acceptable, in planning terms: they typically go through the process and are approved. As for the prior approval process specifically, I assure everybody that huge safeguards are in place, including consultation, the requirement to prove that it is the right and best site and the right of a delegated officer at a council or a planning committee to say no. I think that there is a perception that a prior approval process gives us carte blanche to do whatever we want and put anything anywhere. That is absolutely not the case. There is a very detailed and stringent application process to go through before we can do that.

The Slieve Gullion mast was part of the Shared Rural Network programme. I worked on that, so I know about that one. The challenges around that kind of rural deployment are incredible. We have to build sites in specific locations, taking account of the topography and how that deals with radio waves. Siting that particular programme was even more difficult, because it was a Government programme that brought all three UK mobile network operators together. They all had to show where they did and did not have coverage, with all the commercial and competition sensitivities that go with that. Through doing that, they produced what we call a pixel map. That pixel map defined where we could and could not go to provide that level of service under that programme. That meant that siting was incredibly difficult.

The siting of the mast at Slieve Gullion was very challenging, because that is an AONB. I wholly respect that, but, although that was not the only site that we could find, it was, believe it or not, the best site that we could find that could provide the level of service needed whilst taking account of all the technical factors, from radio propagation to topography and suiting all three sharing operators. You mentioned tree masts. To be honest, some of those look fine from a distance, but, when you get closer to them, they look horrific. It is horses for courses. The tree masts do not have the same structural capability as the lattice mast at Slieve Gullion has. A tree mast in that location would probably not have been shareable, structurally speaking, whereas we were able to get three operators sharing that mast. You might perceive it as an eyesore, but, had not been able to get a structure that could share, we might have had to build three sites in that area, one for each sharing operator. Instead, we consolidated, and that one lattice mast was probably the least worst option compared with the cumulative impact that three masts might have had.

Mr McNulty: There is no question: it is an eyesore. Thankfully, it is not on the top of Slieve Gullion or any other mountain. The tops of mountains are out of bounds, right?

Mr McHenry: Our radio planners would have loved it up there, to be honest.

Mr McNulty: Thank God.

Mr McHenry: We respect the landscape sensitivity there — it is a designated AONB — so we had to compromise and move the mast down.

Mr McNulty: People in South Armagh are glad about that.

Mr Elliott: Justin, may I come back in, quickly, on what the industry is doing? One of the reasons why we want the code of practice is that it will set the rules of the game between us and local authorities. It will set what we do and how we do it and where masts should and should not go. We want that information to be available so that people can look it up and it is transparent. As I said, we are struggling to find any Department that will put its name to that and publish it as a departmental document.

You mentioned health concerns about 5G. We have invested heavily in a "5GCheckTheFacts" web page, but we cannot get that onto any government website over here to make the information available. It has been three years since the mobile action plan, and it is still not available on those websites, even as a link. I put this offer to Committee members: if your council wants someone to come in and speak about how radio and electromagnetic frequencies work and about the other issues that you raised, I will be happy to do that. Part of my role is public affairs, which includes going to speak to councils and making them aware, and, as I said, we have the information behind that. We would love that to be linked to from a Northern Ireland government website or a website for the equivalent of Public Health England over here so that people can view it.

As Sean said, the planning system is the guard rail. We have to work within that system. We are not seeking for that to be taken away. Rather, we want to ensure that we act within it and that it enables us to build the networks and deploy the technology changes that are happening, very much in keeping with how people want that to happen. That is why, even with prior approval, councils have the right of refusal.

We very much want to work within. The investment is for your constituents, who will utilise it. When the mast attacks happened in west Belfast, as well as a few others elsewhere, the response from the community was not, "We do not want that", but, "When will you get it back? We need that infrastructure in place". It was fascinating to see that. We have changed, and the attitude is more permissive and one of, "I want my signal. I want to be able to use my mobile phone". However, I stress that, to have a signal, the physical infrastructure needs to be in place as well.

Mr McNulty: Somebody in Belleeks said to me, "You can put the mobile phone mast in my backyard. I do not care. I want my mobile phone network", so I get where you are coming from.

It is about capacity and coverage, but the bigger issue for you now is capacity. Where is AI in relation to that? How are the proliferation and exponential growth of AI impacting on you, given its demands on capacity?

Mr Elliott: We see growth on our networks every year. Ofcom figures for how it is doing show that it was 14% and is now 15% or 20%. The figures show that it is rising exponentially. Equally, how do people use AI? They use it mostly through apps on their mobile phone, so we can only expect demand to increase. As you rightly said, that is why the upgrade is so important. At present, our plans are far more focused on upgrades than on new infrastructure. That, again, is about having the right planning system; I go back to that point. At the moment, there are restrictions on whether we can have three antennas. We need to have more antennas to add capacity, which takes us into seeking full planning permission. The unintended consequence of that is that there will sometimes be a mast that the community is perfectly happy with, but we are forced off that site and have to find a new site. That just does not work. Let us see how the system works and how the technology has changed, and we can then make sure that the planning system works with it and for communities as well.

Mr McNulty: You are obviously the hardware folks. When it comes to having AI guard rails and where that will potentially go downstream, do you have the capacity to pull the plug as need be? [Laughter.]

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): We will leave that for another day, Justin. We should hold a conference on that.

There is a final question, or questions, from Andrew.

Mr McMurray: To be fair, Chair, I normally say, out of generosity, that all the subjects have been covered, but I think that it is pretty much true here. Thank you very much.

I thank Mr McHenry, I think it is — sorry, I do not have my glasses on —.

Mr McHenry: You are all right.

Mr McMurray: Thank you for the clarification, Mr McHenry, on there being no carte blanche in planning. That was helpful. Although, to reference what Mr McNulty alluded to, sometimes what is best for the operator may not be best for the community. Since everyone else has been parochial, I will too. A mast has been proposed to be sited in a forest park in my constituency. Everyone knows the benefits, of course. They need that benefit and they want to use their mobile phones and all that goes with them, but it is a balancing act. I suppose we just need to pass that down.

Whatever you may say about having only one bar on your phone in Carrick; I can get only one bar in room 258 up here.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): You want another bar installed.

Mr Boylan: You would have to go up on top of the roof and through the walls. You could get a dish outside your window.

Mr McMurray: Thank you, gentlemen. I will leave it at that.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): You have been very kind with your time. Finally, the appointment of digital champions elsewhere was touched on. How beneficial do you think they could be here for lobbying, particularly around the mistruths or misunderstandings that are out there, and making sure that councils and planners liaise with central government? How vital is their role?

Mr Elliott: That is a very good question. Digital champions are extremely helpful. Another positive for Northern Ireland is that there is a digital champion in each of the 11 councils, which is not the same elsewhere. The issue is about making sure that those are fully resourced, dedicated positions. Often, the role is 10% or 20% of someone's job, so they cannot focus on it entirely. They give us a single point of contact, however. Just as councils do not necessarily know who to come to in our industry, we do not know who to go to in councils, and they build those relationships. Equally, they can have a role with local constituents and residents in building out why the infrastructure is important.

Also, importantly, it is about taking away perceptions and myths around masts. We have heard about lattice masts, and we are often told that people think that a 700 foot high electricity pylon or something like that is going up, which is generally not the case. Often, they are monopoles, which are built more like a lamp post, but without a light on top. People have certain perceptions. Equally, the role of the champions is about people's understanding of why mobile connectivity is needed, what it gives them and what it will give them. That community role is important. As I said, however, they engage with us in working through the planning system and having those discussions of, "That's going to be a difficult place to put it. Have you got any other ideas? We think this". We can have those discussions. Ultimately, we are defined by radio physics. If you go into a field in the middle of nowhere, there is no one there who needs the signal. We need it where there is demand. We can have those conversations and can work it out. If there is no conduit in councils, often there is no expertise or understanding of what to do.

We value the digital champions. We have a report, which I am happy to share with the Committee, showing that the relationship with the industry is four times better where there are digital champions and that it is four times more permissive around that infrastructure where there are digital champions. Therefore, we think that they are very important.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): Nick, do you want to come in?

Mr Speed: A single point of contact at local authority level is really important in a sector where there is ongoing change. In the areas where they have them, digital champions have been really useful for us in the digital voice switchover. They have been particularly useful for getting information out to people who use devices such as telecare devices and for managing that period of change.

Mr McHenry: Digital champions can help to lead to better solutions. I will give a practical example of the benefit. In Glasgow, we had quite a few issues trying to put street work poles in place on an adopted highway. The planners said that the poles were on a visibility splay and would therefore impact on pedestrian footfall on the footpath, so they asked why we could not use the unadopted verge to the side. Up to that point, we could not do that, because Glasgow City Council owned the green verge — a little sliver of land that was no use for anything else. The council would not sign an estates agreement with us, for no reason other than as a matter of principle.

The digital champion in the dedicated telecommunications unit in Glasgow City Council went to the estates department and said, "If you let them on this little bit of land that is no use for anything else, we will get connectivity that will feed into the Glasgow city deal, and it will boost our economy, which is what we all want. Secondly, the planners in this council will be significantly happier with the proposal, and the operators will be happy too". Everybody wins with a bit of pragmatism, but it took an in-house digital champion to join the dots between the various departments and make that a reality. We have used the champion in Glasgow City Council many times now. We have agreed valuation principles and terms. It is a standard template, and we just go in and get it done. It has led to a much better solution, and it is much quicker for everybody.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): That is really useful. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for coming along today and for giving of your time. That was a really good session. There are a number of action points, on which, no doubt, the Committee will liaise with you. We will also write to the Minister on the back of the points that you have made.

Mr McHenry: Thank you very much.

The Deputy Chairperson (Mr Stewart): Can I get the Committee's retrospective approval for the session to be recorded by Hansard? They have been scribbling frantically, and it would be a shame — a waste of two hours — if you did not approve.