Global IT Outage

Debate between Baroness Twycross and Lord Moylan

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My noble friend raises similar points to other noble Lords; Members across the House are quite rightly concerned about this. As part of the process of developing and taking the cybersecurity and resilience Bill through this House and the other place, all learning from a range of reviews, including some of the public inquiries that have reported and are yet to report, will be key to improving our country’s resilience.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness to her place and will pick up on a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. The noble Baroness is right to say that millions of devices throughout the country were affected, but they were, as I understand it, all devices using the Microsoft operating system. Is it not the case that the dominance that the Microsoft operating system has achieved in this country, reinforced by cautious corporate IT managers who always recommend it, has potentially become a threat to our security? I hope the Government are able to recommend that the Competition Commission or some other competent authority should look at this, with a view to reducing the dominance of Microsoft and increasing our resilience.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question, which packed a lot in. I agree that the dominance of any particular software company or IT system is a risk to resilience, as government has known for some time. But we need to look at this as a whole and—I do not want to sound like a broken record—this will be covered by the cybersecurity and resilience Bill as it proceeds through the House.