Jaguar Land Rover Cyberattack

Debate between Earl Russell and Lord Leong

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point. I share with noble Lords that in the UK ransomware is considered the greatest of all serious and organised cybercrime threats and is deemed a risk to the UK’s national security by the National Crime Agency. In January 2025, the Home Office launched a consultation on a package of proposals to reduce the threat that ransomware poses to the UK economy. Alongside this consultation, significant stakeholder engagement also took place. Three proposals were consulted on: first, whether there should be a targeted ban on ransom payments to owners; secondly, a ransom payment prevention regime; and, thirdly, whether there should be a mandatory incident and reporting regime. The Home Office is progressing a new package of measures to protect UK businesses, and we will update the House accordingly.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, today is the last day of free support for Windows 10. It is estimated that 39% of our home computers will be impacted, as well as UK businesses, industry and our very national security. Why we are not requiring extended security updates for Windows 10, as are now required across the EEA?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

The noble Earl makes an interesting point that I mentioned earlier. Companies using outdated systems should consider whether that is still appropriate. To do so, I urge all companies to conduct Cyber Essentials certification. Once they have the certification, they can ensure that their customers and whoever they do business with are protected against cyberattacks.

UK Modern Industrial Strategy

Debate between Earl Russell and Lord Leong

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, since we got into government 11 months ago, we have secured £100 billion of inward investment in this country. People are coming to invest in this country because they have confidence in the Government. We have set out the infrastructure strategy, the industrial strategy, the trade strategy and will, hopefully very soon, set out the small business strategy. This Government are getting on with growing the economy, and we will attract more and more investment.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches very much welcome this the first industrial strategy since 2017. We particularly welcome the concentration on our energy resilience and energy security. It is absolutely right that clean energy is included as one of the eight sectors. The green economy grew by 10.3% last year, so we must work to strengthen it in its broadest sense. On the plans to reduce the cost of energy to business, we welcome the reduction of levies in this area. But I reiterate my noble friend’s point about why this cannot be done before 2027. What more can be done to help our hospitality and leisure sectors specifically? Do the Government also recognise the need to remove levies from domestic energy bills too?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl for that and for his support for the energy schemes. We recognise that high electricity costs are a key challenge for the United Kingdom’s businesses, and we as a Government want to provide the support necessary for energy-intensive industries to improve their competitiveness. We hear this from businesses every day. That is why we have announced, as the noble Earl mentioned, the British industrial competitiveness scheme, which will slash industrial electricity prices by somewhere between 20% and 25%.

We will conduct a consultation to find out about some of these high-intensity businesses. Some 7,000 manufacturing businesses, including car makers and defence manufacturers, employ some 300,000 skilled people. This is where we need to support. In addition to that, we have the network charging compensation scheme, under which some businesses will get an uplift from 60% to 90%. We are putting in place support for high-intensity electricity users to help them manage their business more effectively and more competitively.