 The next item of business is a member's business debate on motion 16039 in the name of Bruce Crawford on Scottish gigabit cities. That debate will be concluded without any questions being put with those members who wish to speak in the debate. Please press the request to speak buttons now and I'm out to learn stuff, Mr Crawford. I'm always willing to teach you, Presiding Officer. Presiding Officer, I'd like to thank sincerely my MSP colleagues who've supported my motion, enabling me to bring this debate to the chamber. I also thank those who've stayed behind this evening to listen to the debate. One thing I think I can safely say, Presiding Officer, is having an internet connection is not what it used to be. Remember the early days of dial-up? Well, actually it wasn't that long ago. Remember the falling-out with our family members who simply wanted to talk on the landline but couldn't do so because they couldn't use the internet in the landline at the same time? Well, gone is the age of the internet of steam and wood, with the average family home now much quieter and the internet much faster. We are now wirelessly connected, not just through our PCs accessing the internet, but also our televisions or tablets or games consoles. I can imagine the Presiding Officer who's on a games console every night and even our lights, central heating and security systems. This is technology that's brought us together, made shopping, booking a holiday, finding cooking recipes and DIY hints much faster and easier, at least for most of us, Presiding Officer, given the conversation that we had earlier. However, with increasing demand for the internet to power our lives, naturally the demand for faster and stronger connection has also grown. Presiding Officer, you can imagine my delight, therefore, when city fibre announced that we'd embark on a project that would deliver ultrafast broadband to almost every household in the city of Stirling. The result being that Stirling has the potential to transform it into a world-leading digital city as one of the first cities in the UK to benefit from city fibre's fibre to premise programme. The ambition of the partnership between Stirling Council and city fibre is to enable Stirling to become the first gigabyte city in the UK, and I like that. Gold standard, full fibre connectivity, can help ensure that Stirling is at the forefront of digital innovation. It can provide a catalyst to build on the Stirling city region deal energising the digital district plans. The applications and benefits of gigabyte speed internet connectivity are almost endless. It will provide significant comparative advantage for the SME sector, as well as improved inward investment potential. The city's existing 24-kilometre full fibre network launched in 2017 to connect the city's schools, libraries and community venues will expand city-wide to reach nearly every home in business in Stirling. The first homes already have access to gigabyte speed broadband services of up to 1,000 megabit per second. The first businesses will soon be able to connect and enjoy the same advantages. That is what we call going at full speed. City fibre's £2.5 billion project will also deliver this technology to the doors of people across 5 million premises in the UK. There will be more than £200 million investment into Scotland alone, with Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Stirling all set to benefit from one gigabyte per second ultra-fast broadband speeds. Glasgow will also see investment expanding network to serve public sector and business sites. Inverness, William Thursoe and Wick will begin their full fibre journey under this programme, with more than 150 public sector sites to be connected. The Stirling city alone will see a £10 million investment from city fibre, and when complete, the project will serve 18,000 Stirling properties. It will have the potential to connect to full fibre to premise broadband. Faster broadband also means smoother and faster ways to run modern-day businesses. The infrastructure impact alone is estimated to result in a £6 million boost in the value of the local Stirling economy, with a further £8 million boost in the local Stirling economy as a result of activity from new and emerging businesses in the area. However, full fibre unlocks the potential also of modern healthcare technology. I have seen for myself some of the new and innovative ways that patients could, for example, monitor their own blood pressure and send live updates to their GP. That is the future. Technologies such as this can be hugely beneficial in helping to diagnose, treat and support patients. I am excited about the new infrastructure that will unlock for my constituents, as well as for people in various places across Scotland. Full fibre investment projects such as city fibres in Stirling are complemented by the Scottish Government's target of ensuring access to superfast broadband for each and every premise in Scotland. Despite telecoms being reserved to Westminster, the Scottish Government is building on the success of the £400 million digital Scotland superfast broadband programme. The Scottish Government will invest a further £600 million to ensure that Scotland is at the forefront of digital connectivity to reaching 100 per cent of premises in Scotland. Based on the latest figures that I have available, 89.4 per cent of premises in the Stirling area can now access speeds of 30 megabits per second and above. In fact, an incredible 95 per cent of Stirling properties in total have access to the fibre network, albeit not every property can access superfast broadband speeds yet. BT Open Reaches role should also be recognised for the substantial part that they have played in this achievement. Yes, it is wholly understandable that private investment in this arena will find the more densely populated areas more attractive. That is why the Scottish Government's R100 programme, which helps to reach the final properties that are not connected, is so vital. That is particularly true in rural areas. In closing, the operation in Stirling has been a fantastic example of multiple organisations working hard together to deliver something that will truly transform the lives of people. I commend the work of City Fibre, Stirling Council, the 4th Housing Association and countless others who have been involved. I look forward to the roll-out of ultrafast in Stirling in the coming weeks. We are on the verge of delivering the world-class infrastructure that is needed for the fourth industrial revolution. We are now keen to ensure that Scotland is able to exploit it to the full for both economic and societies game. I am very pleased to be speaking in Bruce Crawford's debate this evening. I know that Mr Crawford sees the installation of full fibre broadband as a bit of a race between Aberdeen and Stirling to be the first to be fully finished with fibre broadband, but I hope that I might prove him otherwise. The motion for debate tonight is not dissimilar to motion S5M-15736, which I lodged on 5 February this year, but not for debate, I probably should have. Aberdeen is the first city in Scotland to receive next-generation full fibre broadband as part of City Fibre's national fibre to the premises roll-out in exclusive partnership with Vodafone in Aberdeen. There is no doubt that the rapid growth of data consumption is putting increasing pressure on the copper infrastructure, so, thankfully, Aberdeen will join the ranks of some of the best digitally connected cities in the world. It is interesting to note that Aberdeen was chosen as the first Scottish city for FTTP because of its strong tech sector. Aberdeen's full fibre journey began in March 2015 in Stirling in January 2017, when City Fibre launched proposals for its fibre network, 80km, initially, to serve the local business community. Businesses began to be connected from June 2015. That was extended in June 2017 to 100km, as Aberdeen City Council began to connect their public sector estate, including schools, libraries, community centres and their offices. By December 2017, the network had been extended to 100km. By February 2018, City Fibre had announced its partnership with Vodafone, extending the network to reach nearly every home and business. That was started in July 2018. I think that it was in November of that year that roll-out commenced in Stirling. This spring, the first homes go live with gigafast broadband. Since July, City Fibre has, on average, constructed 1,000 newly constructed fibre connections to 1,000 homes per month. In my constituency of Aberdeen South and North Concordyn, homes are live and receiving the service in Concorth and Torrey. Also connected in the north of the city are Cummings Park and Rosehill. In total, they have passed around 20,000 homes. That will mean that those homes will receive speeds of 900Mbps, which will transform the way customers can access and enjoy seamless connectivity when members of the family are streaming, downloading and playing all at once. Hopefully, it will stop some arguments in some households. It will make remote working much more of a reality, because there will be instant and reliable access to the cloud. I think that that is really important for business. In my meetings with City Fibre, I have pressed them to recognise that the boundaries of the city of Aberdeen go quite far out and include quite large rural areas, and I have urged them to go out as far as possible. Regrettably, there will be areas that will not be covered and they will have to come under the R100 programme. I have been out to see their work in a snowy day on a lagart terrace in my constituency. Just last Friday, I went into work in my office and they were just outside my office. I have to say that I have been impressed by the speed and tidiness of their work and the reinstatement of the pavements after they have dug trenches. I will wait and see if they will withstand frost, ice and snow. City Fibre has also been very attentive in answering my constituents' queries, although there has been only one complaint and they have been dealt with very quickly. I look forward to seeing Scotland move up the league tables of being digitally connected countries. O and sterling probably will be first only because it is smaller. It is a wee friendly feud going on. I call Finlay Carson. I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak in this evening's debate and thank Bruce Crawford for bringing it to the chamber. I start by declaring interest as a director in CMS Broadband, a firm based in my constituency. As the Scottish Conservatives spokesman in the digital economy, as well as a member representing a very rural constituency, it is fair to say that the issue of fibre broadband roll-out is one of my top priorities. Bruce Crawford's motion mentions investment from city fibre and I had a very positive meeting with the company last year here in Parliament. Their document building Scotland's full fibre future lays out an exciting vision for Scotland's digital future. It cannot be denied that digital is at the heart of everything that we do in our daily lives now and we must ensure that Scotland is at the very heart of that fourth industrial revolution, like we have been at the forefront of other revolutions. I was at an event just last week in Parliament hosted by Haas Technology Group, part of which looked at how data will play a significant role going forward in facilitating healthy aging. In Dumfries and Galloway, Lord Burnhouse and Association are already achieving results with advanced risk modelling for early detection, or ARM, as it is commonly known. That helps residents to adopt technology to help to protect the risk of falls and enable faster support. Over a six-month period, there has been a 25-to-one safe-to-spend ratio with those who have the ARM technology having zero falls. Here we have a perfect example of how technology is working to the benefit of people living in our communities. We are racing into the fourth industrial revolution, a digital revolution that has, unlike the others, the potential to help to regenerate the natural environment and potentially undo the damage of previous industrial revolutions. However, as well as having the potential to bridge the gap between those who have and those who have not, particularly in rural areas, if it is not rolled out quickly and universally, it has the potential to widen that gap indefinitely. Cityfibre states that deploying gigabit capability and reliable digital connectivity across a community to consumers, business, the public sector and mobile consumers will transform and future-proof the local economy. With potential benefits of over £2 billion each in productivity, innovation and new businesses, the booster digital infrastructure must continue apace, and it is pleasing to see work under way in sterling, continuing the work to expand infrastructure into consumer premises rather than just businesses and public sector contracts. BT rightly points out that, due to Scotland's geography and population density, mobile infrastructure continues to be a problem particularly in rural areas. 4G is not a reality for many of my constituents, already given advantage to more urban areas. Indeed, in some parts, there is little or no mobile signal at all. However, the reality for our cities is that we must develop 5G technology as quickly as possible with plans to introduce it into Edinburgh and Glasgow via EE this year. That can allow businesses to deliver goods and services in ways that they cannot do at the moment. However, I always argue that the place to do this is in the most remote and rural areas, because that is where the greatest savings and the greatest impacts will be. I could give you an analogy of the way that Dumfries and Galloway Council rolled out its LED light project. As we know, LEDs are cheaper to run and last longer, so when the council decided to roll it out to the new low-light polluting lighting units, it installed them the furthest away from the depot to begin with, so there were immediate savings in terms of servicing those lights, and the spend-to-save policy had an immediate effect on the budget of the lighting department. I argue that that would be the same with providing 5G networks with smart home care technology, as I have already mentioned, causing fewer call-outs from health and social care professionals and fewer call-outs to remote and rural areas from the ambulance service, so it is a no-brainer. The Regenesis Consulting Report states that full fibre can unlock £28 billion worth of 5G technology developments. To put that into context, that is double the health budget for this coming financial year. Tonight's debate will be largely positive, which is not always the case when it comes to digital infrastructure debates in this chamber. While I commend companies such as Cityfibre, they must be fully supported by the Scottish Government. I would like to take the opportunity to ask the minister when we are going to get R100, because I am absolutely behind it and it will be transformational for rural areas, but when is it likely to be up and running? No, he can't. He's got seconds left. The debate will become commonplace as the digital revolution shapes our economy in the future, so let's hope that we seize the opportunities that are available to us. I congratulate Bruce Crawford on securing this debate and for highlighting the importance of a number of Scotland cities and city regions in leading the digital revolution. If data is the feedstock of the new economy, then digital infrastructure to send and receive vast quantities of data at the highest possible speeds is as important in the online world as transport infrastructure is to the movement of people and goods. The Aberdeen city region has been one of the first to grasp the opportunity and challenge of ultra-fast connectivity, and, as Maureen Watt said, Aberdeen is indeed leading the way in extending next generation full fibre broadband to the premises, FTTP, which is being delivered by a partnership of city fibre and Vodafone with an investment of £40 million. City fibre says that Aberdeen was chosen as the first Scottish city in this FTTP roll-out not just because of the community's strong tech sector, which has been mentioned, but also because of the council's forward-looking commitment to smart cities initiatives and the strength of its support for this project. Those three elements will be important for other cities and regions, too—all those three elements—engagement by business, a forward-looking local council and strong buy-in to investment from both public and private sectors. IT and Aberdeen has grown strongly in recent years, first as a by-product of the energy industry, then as an alternative to it during the downturn of the last five years. Data analysts and other skilled workers, laid off by the oil and gas industry, soon found other industries keen to take them on or, in many cases, set up in business for themselves. Aberdeen City Council and its partners were quick to recognise the urgent need to diversify the local and regional economies and to embrace digital infrastructure as one of the smartest ways of doing that. Gigabit City Aberdeen was launched as early as 2015, aiming to create an 80-kilometre full-fibre network serving new and existing businesses. The Aberdeen City region deal followed in 2016, bringing the Scottish and UK Governments on board and establishing opportunity in the north-east to represent the private sector in working with Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire councils. Aberdeen City Council then extended plans for the network to 100 kilometres by connecting public buildings across the city from 2017 with Scottish Government support. That strategic public investment helped to anchor the deployment of fibre in the city, giving some certainty to private investors who later came forward. It was also a powerful signal of the city's and the council's support for going further. That takes us to last year's announcement. The aim is to deliver full fibre to the premises, to thousands more homes and businesses through an expanded city-wide network of up to 880 kilometres. Construction began last summer, as we have heard, and already the first homes have been connected across the city. Of course, that means full fibre not just from the exchange to the street cabinet but also from the street cabinet to every individual home or business that it serves. That will deliver ultra-fast speeds, virtually unlimited bandwidth and a high standard of reliability. Some technological advances in recent decades have become obsolete within a few short years. While nobody can know what has not yet been invented, gigabit connectivity is likely to put Aberdeen and other gigabit cities in a very strong place for decades to come. Good news for existing businesses, making for great places to start up new business, and lots of other opportunities for online GP consultations, which Bruce Crawford mentioned, and remote monitoring of vulnerable people living alone to online learning opportunities at school, college and university. A solid foundation for Aberdeen's next century post-oil economy, delivering the world-class and worldwide connectivity essential for the city and region to diversify and grow. Adamson, who is followed by Gordon Lindhurst, is the last speaker in the open debate. I want to start with thanking Bruce Crawford for bringing this debate to the chamber. We have talked about broadband and connectivity issues many times. It has been interesting to hear from some of the perspectives from around the country today. Of course, for those of us lucky enough to have good broadband connectivity, it is something that we can too much take for granted. Even in my area in Motherwell and Wishill, which is a very urban area, I am constantly frustrated that we are still building new housing estates without the very best connectivity applied to them. I have indeed new estates in my area that do not have a speed that is satisfactory to the people who live and work in those areas. Literally, our homes are littered with devices. In my case, they are definitely littered. We have phones, tablets, notepads, PCs and smart TVs. I have resisted the Alexa because I am the founder of all knowledge in my house, but there is absolutely no doubt that those things are increasing in our lives. As we get more smart technology in the appliances that we have in our house and the environments of our house, the requirement for good broadband and connectivity is there. The internet of things is upon us, and as we have more sensors using the Wi-Fi Lora network throughout Scotland that has been rolled out by the Scottish Government, there will be more opportunity for us to have sensors in our environments that will monitor behaviour and change behaviours in the interests of cities that have smart connectivity. You could be seeing traffic and not air pollution being regulated by diverting traffic to areas or letting people know where car parking space is, which would help me greatly when I am visiting the cities in our country. Restaurant bookings and all those things that can be monitored and given to people directly on their own mobile devices. It is certainly something that we should be embracing. We should be making the investment that we need in broadband networks. It is essential for Scottish economy to keep pace with an increasingly globalised and interconnected world. If I pay tribute to the SCDI publication, which is done in conjunction with the Scottish Government and BT, which is automatic for the people, it shows that practically every area of our lives is going to be affected by new technologies, AI and robotics. In order to take the best advantages for all the reasons that were discussed by both Finlay Carson and Lewis MacDonald in terms of looking after people in their homes and supporting people who want to stay in their homes, in order to have the best advantages that we need to be investing in this area. However, it does not paint the full picture. Only 6 per cent of UK properties have access to full fibre broadband. I know that Mr Crawford called it the gold standard. It is not a phrase that he coined, but I do not think that the gold standard has been used very often to describe it. I find that a bit strange, because I thought that the whole point was getting the metal out of the system, and it has been full fibre, but there we have it. It seems a strange way to describe it, but it seems to be the parlance that is used in this area to achieve that gold fibre. We know that many homes, although they have fibre optics available to them, have the copper cables, but they do not hold the same capacity of fibre optic cables. That is what this project and the work that has been done across some of our cities is doing is so important. Just to say that there have been many mentions of the rural areas in our constituencies, but I think that it is important to mention Invernessport, William and Thurso and Wick, where some of that work has been rolled out in some of the public sector sites that they have there. Of course, we will want to work to that standard throughout Scotland, so that all of our communities can benefit from that investment. Before I call Gordon Lennon, it is a little more relaxed in members' debates. If a member presses a button to request to speak, one has the opportunity to take them. You will not be the last speaker, Mr Lindhurst. You will be followed by Tom Arthur. Deputy Presiding Officer, may I join in the consensus of thanks to Bruce Crawford for bringing this debate to the chamber today? As a Lothian MSP, it is particularly important to the city of Edinburgh, for example, which is part of the Lothian region that I represent, and Edinburgh is part of the Scottish gigabit city programme. As an ambitious digital city, that investment will help Edinburgh and ensure that we join some of the most digitally connected cities across the world. It is estimated that a similar £600 million investment in 1994 brought a £1.8 billion return to the city of Stockholm, where successful startups, Spotify and Skype originated. Edinburgh also has a proud track record in this area, home to digital startups such as Sky Scanner, which have developed into world-leading companies. That Edinburgh and the surrounding region already has solid foundations in the data sectors, evidenced by the exciting future that we certainly hope the city has ahead of it. The UK and Scottish Government funding towards the £1.3 billion Edinburgh and south-east Scotland city region deal aims to establish the region as the data capital of Europe. That brings together key partners in the city, certainly. Tell us if you support Scotland being taken out of the digital single market, given the importance that we are hearing of the whole digital agenda to the Scottish economy. I think that the beauty of the digital world is that we are all part of it whatever the politicians decide about other things. Turning to what I have talked about in previous debates, Edinburgh's pioneering work in areas such as agritech to transform agri-food systems across the world and achieve food and environmental security. Fast and reliable internet access is therefore vital for a city and region with the ambitions that Edinburgh and the south-east region have to be a leader in data. Edinburgh's existing fibre network had already connected businesses in the public sector estate to gigabit speed internet, but the extension of that will mean that it reaches almost every home and business in the city. Giving households the access to the latest technology in which to thrive is essential for the future of Edinburgh, not just in allowing people to access the latest entertainment using the most up-to-date technology, including buffer-free video calling and real-time gaming, but also in giving the people and businesses of Edinburgh the tools to allow them to work and be competitive, including through increased productivity, which could be worth an estimated £86 million to Edinburgh businesses over the next 15 years. By ensuring homes in Edinburgh will soon benefit from the same speed of access as the public sector estate, Edinburgh's children can make use of the latest innovative e-learning techniques both during and outside of school hours, helping to create the next digitally literate generation and maintain Edinburgh's reputation as a globally competitive digital city. Deputy Presiding Officer, full fibre and 5G is at the heart of the UK's industrial and digital strategies as we embark on the fourth industrial revolution, which will fundamentally change the way we live and work. This investment from city fibre to deliver fibre to the home broadband puts Edinburgh at the forefront of that and I am happy to welcome it. It may indeed help us to discover some of the unknown and uninventeds that Lewis Macdonald referred to. Very much, Presiding Officer. I am very grateful for you giving me the opportunity to contribute very briefly to this debate. I would like to begin by thanking my colleague Bruce Crawford for securing this debate. It is very timely. I noticed that Bruce Crawford's initials, if you think BC, before connectivity, because I am at that particular generation where I was born at the time of the advent of the personal computer. I was about 10 of 11 years old when my father brought home our first modem. I was about 18 years old when we broadbanded the house for the first time and I was about 21 years old when Facebook and MySpace and other social media platforms started to emerge. I feel that I am straddling this digital divide to some extent. I have clear memories of VHS and Recot in having to programme video recorders, but I am equally comfortable and fluent using social media, Facebook and talking about the internet of things. I find it very striking in conversations with people who are genuine digital natives, people born this side of the millennium and how fundamentally different their world view is to my world view having been immersed in the digital world. The reason why I state that this is a preamble is because many contributors have made reference to the fourth industrial revolution. It is a neat term. It is a term that we have to somewhat become rather accustomed to the use of once-leg revolution. We live in an age of slick marketing companies and PR organisations, and so terms like fourth industrial revolution can sound a bit glob when we perhaps do not take them as serious as we should. However, at the heart of the fourth industrial revolution will be connectivity, and the project at cityfibre and gigabit cities as an entity is engaged in is something that will facilitate 5G technology. 5G will really be the bedrock of the fourth industrial revolution, and I genuinely believe that it will be a revolution for good, as we have discussed, but also with potential for bad. By revolution, I mean it in that broader sense, an event as of signal importance as the agricultural revolution, the invention of cities, the industrial revolution, the splitting of the atom. How we live our lives and how we engage with each other can be changed in such a way that it is so profound that it can be difficult for us to comprehend. If we think about the internet of things, where every device that we use from our phones to pacemakers to refrigerators to televisions to devices to monitor pets to our vehicles to our bikes to our aircraft, all connected, all engaged and all subject to the power of supercomputers employing techniques of big data to analyse, yes, potential for tremendous good, but also potential for tremendous abuse. I think that it is incredibly important, as politicians, when we discuss the fourth industrial revolution and 5G, that while yes, we talk about the benefits and the transformative. You talk about the potential for there to be bad, but you also recognise how important ensuring it spread over every community and it reaches right into rural communities, because the potential of 5G to exclude people is probably greater now than it has ever been with a digital divide, potentially causing real division between socially isolated communities and cities. Tom Arthur. I thank the member for that intervention. I agree entirely. I think that it can be a geographical divide, but I think that there is also the danger of a demographic divide. It is incredibly important that we address that and make sure that it gains the fruits of the fourth industrial revolution that 5G will power and enable, that they are enjoyed by everyone. That is clearly when we consider perhaps some of the challenges around how that data will be managed. Willie Coffey made reference to the single digital market. I am not going to make a speech about Brexit, but I think that it is very important whether the UK's future relationship is with the European Union and, indeed, with other trading entities in countries that we think very carefully about how we are going to manage that data. If we consider the amount of data that we voluntarily pass on to organisations such as Google or Amazon or Apple for that matter, that amount of data is going to go exponentially in the coming years and decades. We have to make sure that, with that rise, our regulatory frameworks, our control or democratisation of that data, matches and keeps up with that. To fail to do so would potentially lead to a situation in which, as Finlay Carson highlighted, not everyone can enjoy those benefits. Because it is sure to be, I will demur. It is not very often that I demur, but I am demurring. Mr Arthur said in the beginning that it would be brief. Tom Arthur quite rightly mentioned the access to the digital goods and services, which the digital strategy in the European Union was all about. That was also about ensuring better access to consumers, businesses, online goods and services across Europe, but building in the protections that you were talking about specifically to ensure that people across Europe were protected from the more difficult areas that that might produce and be removed from that might remove some of those protections that we might enjoy. I agree absolutely. It is important not to be overly partisan, but whatever happens going forward with regard to Brexit and the future relationship with the European Union, I think that it is important that we talk about those difficult and challenging areas. There have been many conversations about the backstop in other areas and the various political intrigues, but it is important that we in this Parliament and elsewhere give an airing to more of those issues, because they are fundamentally important. They are the heart of what the European project is about. Regardless of what the future relationship would be, it would be a dereliction of duty in our part if we did not give that full scrutiny. I have been indulged to some officer, so thank you very much for the opportunity to speak in this debate and thank you again to Bruce Crawford for securing it. I am just thinking that those are not 5G speeches, those are very slow speeches. Anyway, I am now at last, because I know that there are events waiting to start. I call Paul Wheelhouse Minister to sum up for the Government, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I want to add my words of thanks to Bruce Crawford for calling this motion today and to colleagues from across the chamber who have contributed to a lively debate. Sitting through the debate and waiting for my opportunity to speak, I think that this debate has shown the Parliament a very good light, because I think that we have shown some very intelligent speeches from across the chamber about a very important subject that is of interest to both rural and urban Scotland, of course. Indeed, I thank the Presiding Officer for letting Tom Arthur speak, because I think that that was a very worthwhile addition to the debate from Tom. The debate has highlighted that there is a great opportunity in this debate to discuss something that is perhaps less well covered in the debate about broadband, that of the roll-out of commercial provision in our cities, but also, very importantly, I agree wholeheartedly with Finlay Carson and others who want us to make sure that we keep a focus on ensuring that there are no new sources of digital divide in rural Scotland as well, and I will hopefully come on to that later in my speech. Since taking the helm as Minister for Connectivity, I have had many discussions with stakeholders, businesses and community representatives across Scotland. It has been made very clear to me that there is a unanimous desire to make this country one of Europe's most well-connected. We have a real opportunity, as a number of colleagues have said, to do so in the years ahead of us, making cities such as Stirling, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, world-leading digital cities. Certainly, to accept that there is a degree of competition between colleagues across the chamber, I hope that all our cities can meet that standard. However, as I alluded to earlier, we all too often forget that the provision of broadband is first and foremost a commercial matter, so I really want to applaud Citi Vibre and other commercial providers for choosing to invest in Scotland. We are very grateful to the Government that they do, and in the case of Citi Vibre, as the motion in Mr Crawford's name suggests, the company has committed to broaching £200 million to its fibre investments in Scotland, which is not insignificant. Governments, regulators and wider public sector have an important part to play in helping to create an environment that tracks investment, and I will touch on that shortly. It is a commercial investment that will drive world-class digital connectivity and innovation that enables across all aspects of society and economy, as has been mentioned by Finlay Carson, Clare Adamson and Tom Arthur laterally. It is clear that Citi Vibre's substantial investment in their gigabit cities programme in locations such as Stirling and the rapid deployment of other networks has delivered huge benefits for Scotland, driving value and choice for their customers in the private and public sectors and helping cities like Aberdeen to diversify its economy, as Lewis MacDonald and Morian Watt have alluded to. Back in 2017, I know that the Scottish Government delivered £2 million to support Aberdeen City Council's ambition to increase broadband speeds for key public buildings across the city. Citi Vibre has delivered that connectivity, and that helped to pave the way for the deal with Vodafone that will see residents in Aberdeen enjoy a gigabit capable broadband. I am pleased to say that Citi Vibre is one of a number of companies that have announced substantial commercial investment plans in Scotland in recent months. The likes of OpenReach, Virgin Media and HyperOptic are all investing in fibre, with others poised into the Scottish market and all are playing a key role in delivering of the Scottish Government's digital ambitions. However, clearly not all of Scotland has benefited from that commercial investment, and that is where I agree with Finlay Carson, Clare Adamson and others. Despite the reserve nature of telecoms legislation, the Scottish Government is doing all that it can to help to make Scotland the best place for telecommunications industry to invest in digital infrastructure. We are taking a number of steps to help to incentivise industry. We have introduced rates relief on new fibre infrastructure for 10 years. That is double the commitment that is made by the UK Government. We have relaxed planning legislation to make it easier for operators to deploy new infrastructure. We are developing proposals to extend permitted development rights again to assist new projects and to pick up Clare Adamson's point. We are mending our building regulations to ensure set standard for the in-building of new physical infrastructure, including digital infrastructure. I hope that that helps to the point that she identified. Further to that, we have also created a Scottish version of the DCMS streetworks toolkit—that is the Department of Culture, Media and Sport at UK level—to support operators to navigate the complexities of roadworks across Scottish local authorities and avoid timely and costly deployment delays. All of that serves to demonstrate the extent to which we are going to make sure that Scotland is at the forefront of the digital revolution, despite the reserved areas, as I mentioned. In that regard, Scotland has already come a long way. No matter what source you use, the evidence categorically demonstrates that Scotland has caught up dramatically with the rest of the UK and continues to do so, thanks in large part to the £400 million digital Scotland superfast broadband programme that Bruce Crawford mentioned. Without the programme, we know that only 66 per cent of premises across the country were expected to have access to fibre broadband. Just 21 per cent across the Highlands, and there were no commercial coverage plans at all for Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles, a point that is not lost on me as Scottish Government's Minister for the Islands. Indeed, OFCOM's most recent Connect and Nations report confirmed that, once again, Scotland has outperformed the UK as a whole in deployment of new digital infrastructure over the previous 12 months and is closing the digital divide. Taken in total, access to superfast broadband has now increased by over 31 per cent in Scotland in the past five years, compared with 19 per cent in the UK as a whole. I could give a list of examples, but I won't today for time, Presiding Officer, but there's a response to Emma Harper, which details the points, which show that the local authorities have gone from almost zero to over 70 or 80 per cent in some cases over that time frame. Figures provided by independent analysis site Think Broadband paint an even more positive picture, indicating that more than 93 per cent of all homes and businesses in Scotland now have access to superfast broadband infrastructure, capable of delivering speeds of 30 megabits per second and above. Of course, while that success is to be celebrated, we cannot be complacent, and Finlay Carson is right on that, regarding avoiding creating new opportunities for a digital divide to emerge. I want to reassure members, including Mr Carson, that we are seeking to, with R100, take an outside-in approach to pick up the point that he mentioned about the cost benefits of tackling out-of-areas first and working away in. Telecoms is at the heart of everything that we do. Whether for work or pleasure, we have come to expect that we will be able to access fast and reliable digital connectivity wherever we need it, whenever we need it, and where we are demonstrously closing the gap, there are still too many people across the country who cannot yet meet the benefits that access to fast, reliable broadband can provide. Sadly, there are some households who describe their broadband speed as being steam-driven to pick up Mr Crawford's point, but, thankfully, that number is diminishing as we speak and, hopefully, will eventually be eliminated. Those benefits that we discussed are substantial. In 2014, Scotland's digital economy was estimated to be worth around £4.5 billion, even at that point, with the potential to go far further. We have heard some great examples from Gordon Lindhurst and others about the kind of areas where you can see growth and multiplier effect kicking in from investment in broadband. A recent independent report has further highlighted the increasing importance of good-quality digital connectivity by stating that every pound of public investment in fibre broadband infrastructure in Scotland is delivering nearly £12 in benefits to the Scotland's economy, not an insubstantial return investment by anyone's measure and, indeed, the commercial investment of city fibre and others will also be having similar impacts on our economy. It is vital that this momentum is not lost and that is why we have chosen to take the lead and invest our own resources to deliver the infrastructure that Scotland needs to help our country prosper, despite the responsibility for broadband resting with the UK Government. Our £600 million-reaching 100 per cent programme, which I recognise Mr Carson, is asking about timing, so I should just put your forbearance, Presiding Officer, give some indication of where we are on that. Certainly, we would argue that no other part of the UK has made a commitment with the scale and ambition that we have. From the outset, we sought to try and ensure competitive bidding process to ensure the best value for money for the £600 million investment. The process is a complex one. We have had to build on a degree of flexibility in response to changes in the intervention of the number of properties that we have to cover, and we will award contracts later in 2019. I certainly will give Mr Carson and colleagues across the chamber as much notice of the timing of that as I can when we get newer to it. I recognise a strong interest across the chamber. Procurement for our 100 will continue to progress at pace, and we have retained three highly credible bidders in the process, which I hope is of value to members across the chamber. The level of competition will help to ensure the best possible solutions and outcomes for Scotland, and I look forward to showing further progress in due course. However, we are confident that our 100 procurement is going to produce a fantastic outcome, which we hope will make rural Scotland one of the most digitally connected places anywhere in Europe. To pick up the points that I made earlier on, just imagine what a difference I can make in tackling depopulation, economic growth in our rural communities and making a real difference. The future-proof network that we will expect our 100 to deliver across the country will enable all Scotland to be part of that digital revolution that members have talked so eloquently of today and to share in the economic benefits. Full fibre and 5G to pick up points made by Mr Carson, Mr Lindhurst and others will certainly enable the movement of data, ideas and applications in the same way that canals and railways perhaps underpin the previous industrial revolution. Our investment alongside that of commercial partners and players like City Fibre will ensure that Scotland is well equipped to compete. I am conscious of the time, so I should wrap up. We believe that we have created a distinct offer for the industry in Scotland with some of the measures that I outlined earlier. City Fibre is one of many companies that is responding positively to that, and we welcome that. That investment is helping to strengthen our position as one of Europe's most well-connected nations. I trust and believe from what I have heard tonight that we have the support of the chamber in delivering that ambition. Thank you very much.