UK Telecommunications

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Lord Reid of Cardowan

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes]

I thank the noble Lord. His latter point picks up on some of the points he made yesterday afternoon, when I was also standing in this position. To start with his first question, on the cost of compliance, thanks to the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre oversight board, there are already costs incurred of monitoring the use of Huawei technology in our networks. I cannot give him a specific figure now; if we are able to, I suspect it will be partly as a result of the necessary impact assessment that will have to be prepared by government and Ministers when putting legislation before this House. If I am able to give him anything approaching a figure at this stage, I will write to him with that information.

Yesterday, in this House, the noble Lord quite rightly raised the human rights abuses. The UK has been clear that China’s approach in Xinjiang must stop. We have led international condemnation of the systematic human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslims and other minorities in China. Ministers and senior officials regularly raise our concerns with the Chinese, and in October, the UK read a statement of concern on behalf of 23 countries at the United Nations in New York.

The challenge of today’s decision—and the reason Ministers rightly wanted to take a good length of time to consider it, and wanted there to be a secure and reliable evidence base on which to make it—is that although this is a decision about telecoms, it is set in a wider geopolitical context, some factors of which the noble Lord has highlighted. I do not agree with him that is an either/or situation. As a country, we have a relationship with China that gives us the ability to make statements to the United Nations of the sort I mentioned. Equally, Huawei is already in our networks. What we are doing today is constraining its use on the edge of the networks, which will also help with further market diversification so that we do not need to rely on Huawei in the future.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Statement. Will she explain, as I asked yesterday, why this decision has pre-empted the strategic defence and security review? The Minister spoke very strongly, and at length, on technical points, and I have the greatest respect for GCHQ and the National Cyber Security Centre, but this is not just a technical issue. This is critical national infrastructure that touches upon defence, security and many aspects of our foreign policy and foreign relations. The appropriate place to take this decision was during the strategic defence and security review. I hope that we have not added to the market failure that the Minister mentioned by political failure. I fear that this decision has been taken in a way that does not allow all necessary parties inside government who are interested to argue their case publicly and transparently. I hope I am wrong, but the idea that we can isolate one part of this system in the network world seems extremely optimistic.

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes]

I thank the noble Lord very much indeed for his points, which are based on great experience. He is right that we talked yesterday about the expected strategic defence and security review. While of course the decision took account of wider factors, as I have said, this is a decision about the telecom supply chain in this country, where the rollout of speedier connectivity is already happening and where we are not able, at the moment, to limit the use of high-risk vendors in those networks by providers who are already rolling this out. This decision was not taken overnight; this Government and the previous Government have been discussing it for quite a number of months. That is why the decision needed to be taken, and the factors talked about by the noble Lord were taken into account in the discussions to date.

Huawei: UK’s 5G Network

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Lord Reid of Cardowan

Monday 27th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes]

The noble Lord makes a very important point. I said in answer to the question just now that there will be a number of factors involved in making a decision of this importance. We will obviously take all of the advice from the services on a number of different issues. It would not be appropriate for me to pre-empt the decisions or some of the detailed factors, but I am absolutely certain that we will return to some of the issues he raised in this place.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, I will differ from other noble Lords and say to the Minister that there is no reason why this decision should be taken tomorrow, particularly since we are on the eve of a strategic defence and security review. Does it not make more sense to discuss this issue in the context of that review, given the critical nature of our digital infrastructure for the defence and security of this country? We have waited long enough. There is no reason why we cannot wait another few months or a year to get this right, because it is absolutely critical and should be decided in context, not out of it.

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes]

Again, the noble Lord makes a very important point. He is right to say that all decisions, whether on this matter or other related matters such as a defence review, are interconnected. There are issues relating to our foreign policy and our wider relationships with countries around the world. He is right to say that digital infrastructure is critical. However, this decision has been under debate and discussion in this House and the other place, and more broadly, for some time. We know that, as that digital infrastructure has been rolled out, providers are looking for guidance. The noble Lord highlights one of the factors that has to be balanced in making this decision.