Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chi Onwurah

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

Not to break the rules, but to work with other nations whose values we share, and in the long term to develop and support companies in this area.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend also agree that this did not come as a great shock to the Government? It was all laid out in the 2013 Intelligence and Security Committee report on critical national infrastructure, but nothing has been done since then.

[Chi Onwurah]

My right hon. Friend, as always, makes a really good point. That is where an industrial strategy would have come in. It was predicted and we had time to build up alternatives. To go from having Huawei as one vendor among others that had small parts of our network, to our network being so dependent on it, took time. We could have used that time better to secure our networks and our own capability. The Government are bodging this. They are leaving it to the market when national security is not a market function. Labour has consistently welcomed the Bill, but it is only a small step towards achieving a truly secure and robust telecommunications network. In 2010 the Tories inherited a secure, competitive and world-leading network. It is now insecure, uncompetitive and bumping along the bottom. The Government have wasted 11 years, with huge delays in the second and third-generation fixed broadband roll-out, pushing us down the bottom of the OECD tables. Telecommunications are essential to our national security and economy, and we hope the Government will take this opportunity to recognise that.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chi Onwurah

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th January 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I would like to speak to new clause 7, which stands in my name. It is related to new clause 3, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester. As he has just said, Ofcom has had an expansion of its duties in the last few years and become a little bit like a Christmas tree with added responsibilities, but none of them will be as important for the nation’s future as this. That is not to decry any of the expertise or other duties that Ofcom has, but national security and the security of our national telecoms infrastructure, is a vital new task. I have said before that my concern about Ofcom centres on national security. That is why I have tabled amendments to the Bill. My fear is that Ofcom will not have the necessary expertise, although I am not suggesting that it cannot develop into a good regulatory body looking at security and our national telecoms infrastructure.

I tabled parliamentary questions on Ofcom’s budgets and headcounts, and I am glad to see that its budget and personnel have increased as its tasks have grown. That was not the case in 2010, when its budgets were subject to some quite savage cuts. My concern—I will call this my Robin Day approach—is that we have to future-proof Ofcom to ensure that the organisation not only has the budget but also has the personnel it needs. I do not want to suggest that the Minister would want to cut Ofcom’s budget at present, as it does important work. However, it is a regulator and perhaps does not have the clout of a Government Department, so any future Chancellor or Treasury looking for cuts disguised as efficiencies could see it as easy, low-hanging fruit.

Ensuring that the Secretary of State undertakes duties highlighting Ofcom’s efficiency puts a spotlight on the basis of considerations by future Administrations of any political persuasion. That will be important, not just in the early stages but as we continue. It may take a while for Ofcom to get up to speed, but I want to ensure that that continues. The obligation for the Secretary of State to report on Ofcom would at least give me comfort that first, it is being looked at and, secondly, that civil servants cannot in future just assume that an easy cut can be made but which might then impact on our national security.

I raised another subject with the head of Ofcom when she appeared before the Committee. I do not really want to rehearse the discussions again, but as the Bill progresses the Minister will have to give assurances on security, and try to demonstrate the close working relationship between Ofcom and the security services. That will be important, as it will give credibility to the expectation that Ofcom can actually do the job that we have set out. If the Minister does that, it will reassure people who may not be convinced that Ofcom has the necessary expertise, and ensure that that close working relationship continues, not just now but in future, so that national security is at the centre of this.

There will always be a balance—as I said, we saw it in the National Security and Investment Bill—between wanting, quite rightly, to promote telecoms as a sector, and national security. I fall very much on the side of national security being the important consideration, and we need to ensure that that is always the case. It is important that national security and intelligence agencies are able to influence these decisions, not just in respect of Ofcom but also in respect of Ministers in future.

[Chi Onwurah]

I support and second the comments and contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for the City of Chester (Christian Matheson) and of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Kevan Jones), who tabled new clauses 3 and 7. I would also like to congratulate the Committee on having made it through, as it were, the thickets of the Bill as it stands to the sunlit uplands of our new clauses, which are designed to improve it in a constructive and supportive way.

New clauses 3 and 7 both address the challenge of Ofcom’s resources. As Members of the Committee know, I joined Ofcom in 2004. I know that we are not allowed to use props in debates in the Chamber, but the Communications Act 2003, which I am holding in my hand, is the Act with which the Bill is concerned. The changes that the Bill makes are mainly adding to that Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

This is about resources for Ofcom as a whole, but there will also be debate within Ofcom about how its resources are spent. Without any ring-fenced moneys for security, is my hon. Friend concerned, like me, that not only the external control of the budget but that debate internally might compromise security?

[Chi Onwurah]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This debate is important for the Bill and important for our new clauses. It is also important that the Minister clarifies what the duties and priorities of Ofcom should be. Having worked for Ofcom at a different point in its history, I can tell hon. Members that when there is, say, a complaint about the behaviour of somebody in the “Big Brother” household that is hitting all the headlines in all the newspapers, that attracts the sudden concentration of resource—unnecessarily, one might argue. There needs to be a counterweight, if you like, to those headline-driven resourcing bottlenecks, which would be either ring-fencing or reporting on how resource is being used to support national security.

All Opposition Members are clear that national security must be the first priority of Government, and therefore the first priority of Ofcom. This is all the more relevant as I pick up the Communications Act 2003, in all its weightiness, where we find the general duties of Ofcom in section 3:

“It shall be the principal duty of OFCOM, in carrying out their functions—(a) to further the interests of citizens in relation to communications matters; and (b) to further the interests of consumers in relevant markets, where appropriate by promoting competition.”

Security is not mentioned—national security or telecommunications security. During the evidence sessions, the argument was made, although I forget by whom, that security was a necessary part of furthering the interests of citizens in relation to communication matters. That is possibly true, but I still think this important issue would be improved by clarity.

As we know, there is a significant pressure on Ofcom’s resources, which changes week by week and month by month depending on what the issues are in the many and increasing domains in which it operates. If these principal duties of Ofcom do not reflect our national security, the concern is that having no direct reporting mechanism to Parliament could mean these resources being used opaquely, with no direct requirement to prioritise national security. I hope the Minister will agree that new clauses 3 and 7 solve a problem the Bill will have in practice. I hope that if he will not agree to the clauses as they stand, he will agree to consider how Ofcom’s prioritisation of national security interests can be made clearer.

[Mr Jones]

As I have said before, I am not a great fan of arm’s length regulators, because it is a way of Government Departments and Ministers off-loading their responsibilities. Given how my hon. Friend has described the Bill, the way this is going means that Ofcom will be larger than DCMS in the future. Does she share my concern about accountability if things go wrong? It is a good get-out for the Government to be able to hide behind Ofcom, rather than Ministers taking direct responsibility.

[Chi Onwurah]

As always, my right hon. Friend raises a good point. Having worked for a quango, I had clear insight into the line between independence and dependence, and into the importance of the political will of the Government, regardless of supposed independence. Equally, I saw how any regulator or supposedly independent organisation can be used as a shield for Ministers who do not want to take responsibility.

My right hon. Friend also raises a good point about the hollowing out of capacity in Government Departments. A consequence of 10 years of austerity and cuts is that DCMS and other Departments do not have the capability, capacity or resources that they previously might have enjoyed. I will point out to the Minister the example of the Government’s misinformation unit. It has no full-time employees and is supposed to exist using resources already in the Department—for something as critical now, with the vaccine roll-out, as disinformation.

My right hon. Friend is right to emphasise that given the relationship between the Government and Ofcom, which is an independent regulator, and given the increase in responsibilities that the Bill represents at a time when other responsibilities are also being added to Ofcom, the Minister cannot have it both ways. He cannot have no visibility when it comes to Ofcom’s resources and capacity while giving it yet more responsibility. In fact, this seems to be responsibility without accountability. I hope the Minister will take on board the suggestions in new clauses 3 and 7.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chi Onwurah

Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th January 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

[Chi Onwurah]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

[Chi Onwurah]

[Mr Jones]

[Chi Onwurah]

Telecommunications (Security) Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chi Onwurah

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Jones]

[Chi Onwurah]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

[Chi Onwurah]

Telecommunications (Security) Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chi Onwurah

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th January 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Jones]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I do not question his commitment to ensuring that we have security at the heart of the Bill, and I do not intend to press my amendments to a vote.

[Chi Onwurah]

I will speak to amendments 18 and 19, standing in my name and those of my hon. Friends, and to clauses 15 to 17. As the Minister set out, the clauses are about key powers in the Bill that seek to secure our networks and to regularise requirements already in place, albeit informally or not legally, to remove Huawei as a specific high-risk vendor from our networks. The clauses give Government the powers to do what they have said they will do.

On the clauses, I will not repeat what the Minister said, and I congratulate him on clearly setting out their powers, which the Opposition believe are necessary. I also join the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham in paying tribute to our security services, which do such great work to keep us secure across a wide range of threats and challenges—both present and evolving—and on whose continued work and effectiveness the Bill is highly dependent. As my right hon. Friend set out, we want to ensure that national security is absolutely at the heart of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester said that we were going over old ground, and to a certain extent we are because some of the amendments reflect those that I moved last week.

May I say at the outset, Mr Hollobone, that the Minister has been an exemplar in engaging with and briefing the ISC? He has set something of a precedent; usually we have only Cabinet Ministers or Prime Ministers before us to give evidence. He is one of the few junior Ministers to have appeared before us, so I congratulate him. He did it because he wanted to engage with the issues. He must therefore be commended on his commitment to ensure that there is scrutiny. However—this is not to wish his demise, but to argue for his promotion—he will not be there forever. I think he does not quite understand why the Government are not at least moving on this.

The ISC’s remit is defined in the Justice and Security Act 2013. It sets out which Departments we cover, and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is not one of them. However, as I said last week, security is increasingly being covered by other Departments, and this Bill is a good example. The National Security and Investment Bill is another one, where security decisions will be taken by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Parliament must be able to scrutinise that.

If a high-risk vendor is designated as banned from the network by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, there are perfectly good reasons why the intelligence behind that cannot be put into the public domain. The methods by which such information is acquired are of a highly sensitive nature, so it would not only expose our security services’ techniques, but in some cases would make vulnerable the individuals who have been the source of that information. I think most people would accept that that is a very good reason.

This sort of thing is happening increasingly. We have the two Bills that I have referred to, but we also have the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill, which will come back to the House tomorrow. Covert human intelligence and the ability to collect intelligence on behalf of our security services is very important. Most of that is covered by the Home Office, and covert human intelligence sources are covered by the ISC’s remit and can be scrutinised. However, there is a long list of other organisations that will be covered by tomorrow’s Bill, including—we never quite got to the bottom of this—the Food Standards Agency, for example. Again, how do we ensure that there is scrutiny of the decisions?

We also have—this has come out of the pandemic—the new biosecurity unit in the Department of Health. Again, there is no parliamentary scrutiny, because the Health and Social Care Committee will not be able to look at the intelligence that supports so much of that. An easy way out of this is in the Justice and Security Act 2013: the memorandum of understanding, which just means that, were our remit extended to look at this and other matters, the ISC could oversee and ask for the intelligence.

Having spoken to the Business Secretary and the Minister, who sympathises with us, I am not sure where the logjam is in Government. The point is that an amendment will be tabled in the Lords. Whether the provision is in the Bill or just in the memorandum of understanding between the Prime Minister and the ISC, it is easily done and would give confidence that the process at least had parliamentary oversight.

On many of these decisions, frankly, the oversight would not be onerous; we are asking only that we are informed of them. On some occasions, we might not even want to look at the intelligence. It might be so straightforward that, frankly, it is not necessary, so I do not think that it is an administrative burden. I cannot understand what the problem is. To reiterate what I said last week in Committee, it is not about the ISC wanting to have a veto or block over such things. It is, rightly, for the Government and the Secretary of State to make and defend those decisions.

It is also not about the ISC embarrassing the Government, because we cannot talk in public about a lot of the information that we receive. It is not as though we would publish a publicly available report, because of the highly classified nature of the information. However, the ISC can scrutinise decisions and, if it has concerns, write to the Prime Minister or produce a report for the Prime Minister raising them. That gives parliamentary scrutiny of the Executive’s decisions.

As I say, the report might not be made public. People might ask, “Would that be a new thing?” No—it happens all the time. For example, on the well-publicised Russia report this year, there was a public report with redactions in it and quite an extensive annex, which raised some issues that we were concerned about. That annex was seen only by individuals in Government, including the Prime Minister.

There is already a mechanism, so I fail to understand why the Government want to oppose this. From talking to Ministers privately, I think that there is a lot of sympathy with the position and I think that we will get there eventually. How we get there and in what format, I am not sure—whether the method is to put it in the Bill or to do it through the mechanism in the 2013 Act. That might be a way forward.

[Chi Onwurah]

I rise to support the excellent comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham. I did well to delay my remarks till after my right hon. Friend had spoken, because he has set out very effectively, based on his considerable experience as a long-standing member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, both why it is important that that Committee should be consulted and receive the reports, and why it is hard to understand the Minister’s reluctance both in this Bill and in the National Security and Investment Bill to involve a source of such credible security expertise and, importantly, security clearance in key issues of national security.

I want to add two points to those made by my right hon. and hon. Friends. The first is to reiterate a point made previously: our security threats are changing, evolving and, unfortunately, diversifying. We see that in changes to our defence spending, in changes in the national review of our defence capabilities, and in changes in the evolution of the geopolitical landscape—the potential source of threats. However, the Minister does not seem able to support reflecting that by ensuring that, rather than keeping to our existing modes of parliamentary scrutiny, we enable parliamentary scrutiny of issues of national security by those who are best placed to carry out such scrutiny—undoubtedly members of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

I want to point briefly to a discussion in the evidence sessions. Ofcom made it clear that it does not consider itself in a position to make national security decisions, which is understandable, and that some of the decisions and considerations about national security with regards to telecommunications networks would require people who have STRAP clearance. Ofcom’s group director for networks and communications pointed to the fact that she had had STRAP clearance previously, and she said that if the NCSC

“feels that that is needed for the type of information that we may need to handle, we would make sure that happened.”––[Official Report, Telecommunications (Security) Public Bill Committee, 14 January 2021; c. 90, Q115.]

To my knowledge, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee members do not have STRAP clearance. I would like the Minister to comment specifically on the level of security clearance required for members of the Committee that he has identified as being the location for scrutiny of important issues of national security. What level of security clearance do its members have? Would that enable the scrutiny that we all agree is in the best interests of the Bill?

I would like the Minister to respond to a specific example. Amendments 20, 22, 23, 24 and 25 are designed to require that the Intelligence and Security Committee has access to the appropriate information. There is a requirement for the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a copy of a designated vendor direction, as set out in clause 15, which inserts new section 105Z11 into the Communications Act 2003. The new section states:

“The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a copy of—

(a) a designated vendor direction;

(b) a designation notice;

(c) a notice of a variation or revocation of a designated vendor direction; and

(d) a notice of a variation or revocation of a designation notice.”

So far, so good—we have that scrutiny. However, the new section also says:

“The requirement in subsection (1) does not apply if the Secretary of State considers that laying a copy of the direction or notice (as the case may be) before Parliament would be contrary to the interests of national security.”

Telecommunications (Security) Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chi Onwurah

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 21st January 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I apologise for my late arrival, but I was asking a question of the Health Secretary on the vaccine roll-out. When we look back at the time before the pandemic, would we have thought that part of our critical national infrastructure would be vaccine production? As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central said, that is a good example of the changing nature of these things. Will the threats to telecoms change? Yes, they will. Last night we discussed the National Security and Investment Bill, which addresses some of the same issues.

I tabled the amendment to focus on and consider the supply chain. There has been much concentration, quite rightly, on Huawei—not just the history, but the threats. As the Minister knows, I was a keen supporter of the Government’s initial response to Huawei. From a technical point of view, I think allowing 35% and making sure that Huawei was not in the core network was the right response. That all changed with the US sanctions on semiconductor exports to China, which changed the security advice. Again, I agree with that.

It will be interesting to see whether, if President Biden were to change that, we would change the security advice back. Frankly, I doubt that because of the direction of travel. I do not think there will be great change in the new Administration’s approach to China. It might be more nuanced and less belligerent, but I do not think it will fundamentally change. I know from sitting on the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and meeting fellow members from both sides of the House in the US Congress that there is a pretty unified bipartisan position on China.

The debate around Huawei has concentrated on the hardware. My amendment, which is a probing amendment, tries to see what coverage we will have in the telecoms network supply chain. There has been much talk about compromising the main components, but each of these networks are very complicated. We need only look at any electronic equipment used today, whether that is a telephone or a microwave oven, to see that they are very complex pieces of kit. The components are not all sourced here in this country—it would be impossible to do that—but are supplied from around the world. However, in terms of electronics, the major suppliers of a lot of these components are the Chinese, or Chinese companies that manufacture in different parts of south-east Asia, for example.

This is not just about how we get diversification in this sector, although trying to get some home-grown innovation is going to be important. To be honest, I think the opportunity is going to be in software and open RAN, because that is where we can get an advantage if we get our ducks in a row, not only through investment but through Government initiatives and other things. It is about trying to minimise the risk that will be there now that we are going to have two vendors. Now that Huawei is no longer in the network, we are going to have Ericsson and Nokia, both of which are going to be there for the foreseeable future. What will the regulator do to look at the supply chain around their components, for example? From the evidence we took from Dr Drew, it is quite clear that China is using not just these networks and the components that go into telecoms, but other things, including the belt and road initiative, for geopolitical purposes.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way, and for the excellent points he is making. He mentioned the evidence we took in our session with Dr Drew. Is it not true that in those evidence sessions, we heard about the complexity of our networks and the extent to which network operators were not always aware of where their components were or, in this case, the level of components? Is it not the case that my right hon. Friend’s amendment will not only increase the visibility of the different components in the supply chain, but should help the Department and Ofcom understand where these components are, where they are going and the way they are changing through soft upgrades?

[Mr Jones]

I agree. The issue with both Ericsson and Nokia is that they will have Chinese components in their hardware. This is an incredibly complex situation, as my hon. Friend said: we are talking about not just one piece of kit that most of us have in our pockets, but hundreds of thousands of components, pieces of software and other things. What I am trying to put on the record, and what I want the Minister to respond to, is the question of how we get an understanding of any risks that are involved in that, and how the regulator and the Government are going to look at ways in which national security could be compromised, not by the main company being owned by a Chinese state entity, a Russian state entity or any actor that we feel is a threat to us, but by a key component.

I have not yet really understood how the regulator will look at that issue further down the supply chain, and whether it will ask a supplier of kit to the telecoms network, “What is the level of threshold or security that you need?” That is hard enough with hardware, but with open RAN and software—we are talking about bits of code—it is going to be incredibly difficult. One of the issues is around vulnerabilities, and various things have been said about the vulnerability that Huawei poses to our telecoms network. However, I suggest people read the Huawei assessment centre’s annual reports—I am rather sad, because I read such documents. One thing sticks out every single year, and it is not that the Chinese are doing anything nefarious. The reports are highly critical of Huawei for its shoddy workmanship and engineering, but that type of shoddy engineering and a lack of attention to security will lead to security concerns in our telecoms network.

Amendment 7 is designed to tease out from the Government their thinking about the supply chain. We do not want to be over-burdensome on it, because we want to get innovation in the supply chain. We do not want to suddenly give researchers and other people in the supply chain huge regulatory hurdles to jump over, because that would stifle the development that we are looking for. It is about how individual components and the overview of the supply chain will be regulated. I have tabled a later amendment about Ofcom, but again it comes back to the point I made yesterday about the National Security and Infrastructure Bill. What has to be at the heart of it all, every single time, is not to stifle innovation and prosperity, but what has to come first every time is national security.

As I say, amendment 7 is a probing amendment, and I want to understand where the Government are at in terms of the supply chain, the security they feel they need over the supply chain and, more importantly, the visibility of the supply chain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Warman]

In so far as codes of practice will be published by Ofcom, the answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question is yes. The more nuanced answer is that it is a co-production between Ofcom, the Government, NCSC and others.

To conclude, the Government are immensely sympathetic to the issues that the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Lady seek to probe, but we take the view that this amendment would do something that is, ultimately, already covered in the Bill. I hope that, in that spirit, she will withdraw the amendment.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for his response. I am concerned that there is not greater clarity on the role of the supply chain components and the supply chain more generally. We will come to that in further amendments. Given where we are and how we got here, we must take a forward-looking approach to future risks and vectors for risks. This amendment is important in probing that, but I do not seek to put it to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Mr Jones]

I beg to move amendment 9, in clause 1, page 3, line 26, at end insert—

“(2A) The Secretary of State must provide the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament with a report on the specified measures.”

This amendment would ensure that the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament is provided with any information relating to specified security measures which the Secretary of State requires the provider of a public electronic communications network or a public electronic communications service to take.

We are now going to have a debate reiterating a speech I gave yesterday on the National Security and Investment Bill, because it covers the same issues. I will go into the details in a minute, but the amendment attempts to ensure parliamentary oversight of the way in which this Bill will operate. Such scrutiny traditionally comes from the Select Committee that mirrors the Department —the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport—but the decisions taken by the Government and the Secretary of State will be based on evidence that cannot be put into the public domain, because much of it is highly classified. In Parliament, only the Intelligence and Security Committee has the required STRAP clearance to see that evidence. It is important to ensure that the Executive is held to account for taking such decisions and for the public and Parliament to know that decisions have had parliamentary oversight from the ISC.

I do not want to give the impression that the ISC is looking for work, because I have been a member for a number of years and we are busy with a lot of inquiries—I have three to four hours’ reading every week looking through reports from the agencies. However, it is important that the ISC can at least look at the intelligence that lies behind decisions. The amendment does not propose that the ISC should have a veto or be a regulator, because that would not be correct. Decisions about high-risk vendors are for Ofcom and the Secretary of State.

We had the same debate yesterday on the National Security and Investment Bill, because the same issues come up there: decisions will be taken on national infrastructure, and the justification for them will be based on highly classified secret intelligence to which the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee will not have access. People might say, “Isn’t this the ISC getting involved in the day-to-day work of the BEIS Committee?” No, it is not. The ISC already has such a responsibility for Defence Intelligence and the National Cyber Force—military cyber-security—and we stick just to that; we do not go into wider Defence policy issues. Likewise, we scrutinise MI6, whose home Department is the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Again, we do not get into general foreign policy issues, which are rightly for the Foreign Affairs Committee. I do not think there is an easy way for the Government to provide for parliamentary scrutiny at the moment, but I want to go through and explain one.

I have some sympathy with the Minister, just like I had some sympathy with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy yesterday on the National Security and Investment Bill. I know exactly where the problem is, and it is not in the Minister’s Department or in BEIS: it is in the Cabinet Office, which seems to have an issue with the ISC and jealously guards anything that we ask for, ensuring we get only some information even though we are legally entitled to it under the Justice and Security Act 2013. There is usually a tug of war, and on every occasion I have seen it the ISC has won—it is legally allowed the information—but that does not stop the civil servants. I must say that this is not Ministers’ fault; it is the culture in the civil service.

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[Mr Jones]

No, I do not. I know the hon. Gentleman is a new Member, and I actually quite like him, but what is he arguing for? A dictatorship? That the Executive should decide everything? Knowing you, Mr Hollobone, you would take a very dim view of that. You have form on holding the Executive to account—all Governments.

The ISC is there to look at information and provide parliamentary scrutiny. As for the nature of the information we receive, we have all the clearances from top secret going up to STRAP, including STRAP 3, which is intelligence that has a limited circulation and people have to be added to the list. We have access to that as well, which allows us to consider that information.

Our annual reports, which we supply to Parliament, can be debated by Parliament. We can produce reports. For example, most recently, there was the Russia report, which highlighted what the Government had not done rather than what it should have been doing. The contention from the Cabinet Office is that if information goes to the ISC, it is in the public domain. That is a little bit insulting. We do public reports, which have information that can be put into the public domain, but there are always secret annexes that go to the Prime Minister and are not made public, which allow us to question decisions and highlight issues that we think the Prime Minister should take notice of. It is a valuable mechanism for scrutiny.

The argument that will come from the Cabinet Office is that DCMS is not covered. It is. The memorandum of understanding says:

“The ISC is the only committee of Parliament that has regular access to protectively marked information that is sensitive for national security reasons: this means that only the ISC is in a position to scrutinise effectively the work of the Agencies and of those parts of”

the Government

“whose work is directly concerned with intelligence and security matters.”

I accept that DCMS’s day-to-day work is not covered in the description of national security, whether or not this is an issue of concern to individuals. I think it is. There could be an argument as to why the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport got this legislation and whether it should perhaps be put in another Department. I do not agree with that, because I think the general issue of telecoms fits well into the Department’s wider briefs.

Increasingly, a number of Departments are getting involved in, or taking responsibility for, areas that involve national security. BEIS and the National Security and Investment Bill is a good example.

[Chi Onwurah]

My right hon. Friend is far too modest to set out his vast experience with and long-standing membership of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Does he agree that the geopolitical and technological shifts in the last decade in particular—perhaps the last two decades—have meant that the threats to our security come from a broader range and, more specifically in a more technologically-based range, and we have seen our defence requirements move to cyber-security? Therefore, as he said, the increased need of Departments to consider security issues means that the Intelligence and Security Committee’s ability to review items that require security clearance is important. Does he understand why the Government will not allow the Committee to do that?

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend knows that modesty is one of my trademarks, but no, I do not—I do not understand it, nor do I understand where the Government are coming from. I do not think that the problem is with the Minister or his Secretary of State; I think it is the culture of the Cabinet Office, trying somehow to test the Justice and Security Act to destruction. Its argument, basically, is that DCMS is not on the list of organisations, but the Act and the memorandum of understanding are clear: we have jurisdiction over matters that relate to national security, which this clearly does.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

I make no criticism of the Minister, because he has been very proactive, as has his Secretary of State. The problem is this: we have two pieces of legislation going through Parliament. We do not have security Bills very often in this place, and now we have two in a very short period of time. Both make eminent sense and I support them, but this is not something that comes up regularly.

In terms of the Minister’s co-operation, I have no complaints about the way he has operated, but he is not going to be there forever and neither is his Secretary of State, so we need to put in place something that will weather the passage of time, and create an arrangement whereby it will be seen that Parliament is scrutinising these measures. I do not know why the Government—I am sure it is not the Minister, or even his Secretary of State—are resisting this. Frankly, I am not really bothered whether it goes on the face of the Bill or in the MOU, but the Justice and Security Act 2013 is very clear that as a Committee, the ISC has the ability to look at this.

I accept that it would be wrong to get into issues around this Bill that are quite rightly, as the Minister said, for the relevant Select Committee—the Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport—to deal with. We would never do that, so I will withdraw this probing amendment, but we will come back to this issue. I am not usually a betting man, but I suspect that by the time this Bill and the other Bill go through, we will have got to where both I and the Minister—I think, privately—think we should be. I therefore ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Chi Onwurah]

I beg to move amendment 21, in clause 1, page 3, line 26, at end insert—

“(2A) The Secretary of State must make regulations under subsection (1) requiring providers of public electronic communications networks and public electronic communications services to carry out an audit of the goods, services and facilities supplied, provided or made available for the purposes of the provision of their network or service to ascertain whether they present a risk to the security of that network or service.”

This amendment is a probing amendment designed to learn how the Government plans to ensure network operators have a comprehensive audit of hardware of interest because, for example, it is manufactured by a designated or high-risk vendor.

The amendment goes to the heart of two of our key themes: the scrutiny of the powers in the Bill and the effectiveness of the accompanying diversification strategy. It is a probing amendment, designed to enable us to understand—or to have the Minister clarify—plans to ensure that network operators carry out a comprehensive audit of hardware that is relevant to the Bill because, for example, it is manufactured by a designated or high-risk vendor.

We tabled the amendment for a number of reasons. The first is the Government’s decision, which we welcome, to strip Huawei out of our telecommunications networks. There are questions about where that equipment is located, the level of software provision, and in particular the exact nature of the revision of the equipment within the network. In addition, the Government have not provided a plan for locating and removing Huawei from our networks; instead, they have opted to leave it entirely to private sector providers.

That might seem appropriate, but as someone with 20 years’ experience in the telecoms sector, I have to say that it is generally not the case—I am not insulting any individual provider—that providers know exactly where every bit of equipment is located and what level of software or build is associated with the equipment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

As always, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Indeed, the audit, which I agree is burdensome if the information is not already in the management systems, which it should be, would, I hope, be less burdensome than the potential fines for not meeting the basic requirements of knowing what is in the network and where it is. Also, that challenge has been made more complex by the subcontracting of different parts of the telecoms networks.

For example, network providers such as Vodafone or Three have primary vendors—currently Ericsson or Nokia—but there might be subcontractors who provide particular elements of the network and particular management elements. We hope that that will be increasingly the case as we seek to open up the supply chains and make them more diverse. A basic and critical requirement for the Bill to be effective is to have a more diversified supply chain. More suppliers go hand in hand with a diversified supply chain, and therefore different types of equipment, of which we will need to keep track.

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Member for Bracknell has argued that regulations are somehow burdensome on business and unnecessary. It is only when things go wrong that we look back and think, “Wait a minute. That regulation or audit, which was suggested in an amendment, was vitally important.” We must get the context right. These amendments are being tabled not for their own sake but to ensure that security is improved.

[Chi Onwurah]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. As someone who worked for a regulator for six years, I might be expected to agree with my right hon. Friend on the point of regulation; in this context, regulation should not be seen as a burden. As my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester set out, it should be seen as a carrot—an incentive—to get things right. Imagine we had known and been able to see how Huawei’s presence in BT’s network, over the last 15 years or so, would rise from small beginnings to becoming the principal vendor. That might have rung more alarm bells and been an incentive to have transparency.

Regulation is also about levelling the playing field and enabling more effective competition. The better providers will do that, but some providers may not. We want a level playing field, particularly because the 2019 UK Telecoms Supply Chain Review said that there was not an incentive for security in mobile networks. It concluded specifically that there was no incentive for security in mobile networks. Given that conclusion and some of the points provided in the evidence sessions, the Bill does not address incentives to ensure security by design in our mobile networks. It has burdens and fines for not doing that, but it does not have positive incentives.

[Chi Onwurah]

Again, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point with regard to the way in which Huawei grew in the telecoms sector. I do not want to detain the Committee on that history, but Huawei grew by under-cutting existing vendors, building up scale and making its profits by locking in network providers, despite issues with the quality of the equipment, which, as we have discussed, our security services identified.

Having visibility of network equipment, as well as the level of concentration of any one provider, will enable us, in part, not to get into such a situation of dependency in future. Again, I would emphasise that this is about incentivising what should happen but is unfortunately not always the case. That is not simply my view or that of the Labour party; it is the view of witnesses who participated in our evidence sessions. For example, Andrea Donà said:

“It is vital that the secondary legislation that accompanies the Bill clarifies assets in the telecoms network architecture that will be in scope of the security requirement, so that we can work knowing what we have audited, and knowing that the auditors always shared with NCSC. We need a clear understanding between Ofcom and us as providers before the legislation is enforced, so that we understand exactly the boundaries and the scope, and we all work together, having done the audits, to close any vulnerabilities that we might have.”––[Official Report, Telecommunications (Security) Public Bill Committee, 14 January 2021; c. 13-14, Q10.]

Dr Bennett said:

“I would hope that those at the top level are clear about it, but I would be surprised if there were not occasions when they had used subcontractors to do maintenance and the imperative had been to sort out the fault ASAP. Knowing precisely what components had gone in could be wrong, and that might come up in an audit. I think it becomes more important as you flow down the levels.”––[Official Report, Telecommunications (Security) Public Bill Committee, 14 January 2021; c. 49, Q62.]

Dr Bennett later said:

“I have said that audit is needed of the assets in the network. The costs of being audited and of dealing with audits are very high, and they are costs that small companies may not have the resources to meet.”––[Official Report, Telecommunications (Security) Public Bill Committee, 14 January 2021; c. 52, Q67.]

Ofcom said that it was more or less impossible to meet the requirements set out in the codes of practice for the operators, unless it had a detailed asset register of everything in its system. We will expect to see evidence of that, and we expect that it will be regularly checked, audited and so on. We recognise the potential costs of an audit, particularly for smaller providers, although most of them have newer networks and equipment and should have a lot of this information already available. Ofcom is anticipating that this is something it would need to have access to, yet there is no requirement in the Bill or, as far as I can see, in the delegated legislation that has been published to make that requirement.

I have mentioned that this is a probing amendment. I am not sure that it is necessary to have it on the face of the Bill, and it might be that it will be provided for in delegated legislation, but we need a clear and strong strategy for the detection and removal of high-risk components, vendor hardware and software. Otherwise, the Bill will not protect our national security effectively. I hope the Minister will give clarification on that.

[Mr Jones]

rose—

Telecommunications (Security) Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chi Onwurah

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 21st January 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I am demasked. Welcome to the Chair, Mr McCabe. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. The amendment’s intention is similar to that of new clause 7, which we spoke about earlier. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central is trying to probe, like I was, how we get operators to ensure that there is a full audit of their telecoms networks. This is not an easy situation. I accept what the Minister said about trying to strike a balance between prosperity—not wanting to put undue burdens on operators—and ensuring security. As my hon. Friend said, with her huge expertise in the field, these networks are not static entities; they develop over time. The example that she cited was that some of the kit in networks is many years old, which may now create security issues that were not evident when the equipment was introduced.

We are not talking about too onerous a burden on the network operators, because they are large companies. I accept that they will be resistant to anything that adds cost because, at our insistence of wanting cheaper phone calls and mobile technology, prices are competitive between the various operators. My hon. Friend therefore makes a good point that there must be a clear level playing field between the operators.

The Bill will ensure that existing Huawei kit is taken out by 2027, even though the networks did nothing wrong by putting in that kit in the first place. Without wanting to carry on my campaign against the Cabinet Office, the Intelligence and Security Committee’s 2013 report “Foreign involvement in the Critical National Infrastructure” shows that the Cabinet Office was made aware of BT’s contract with the Chinese company Huawei in 2003. That the Cabinet Office felt it was not important enough to tell Ministers so until 2006 reinforces my point about its role. That brings me to Ofcom and its capacity, which I will come to later. If we want the most robust system, we will need a system by which we know what is in the network.

There are two issues. I think it is possibly easier for future deployments, because we know what we are putting in. In the debate around Huawei and the security risks, I think it has been very clear. Let us be honest: an operator would be very silly to put in a piece of equipment that was deemed to be high risk for any future roll-out. However, as my hon. Friend says, it is what is already in the network. We accept that some of that will be taken out as a result of the Huawei issue, but a huge amount of equipment will still be in there.

That is before we look at software. What saddens me about the entire debate around Huawei and the telecoms sector is that it has been very hardware-centric. We know that the risks to our network from software are greater in some respects; we have seen examples of where network compromise is easier, too. Again, how do we get a robust framework in terms of the audit around software—not just what has already been used, but what will be used in the future?

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making some excellent comments. He has raised another issue, which I perhaps did not highlight in my speech, which is that there might be existing equipment that is not necessarily seen as having a security implication but that, as the network evolves, will pose a security threat in the future. I gave an example in the evidence sessions. Say Amazon Web Services was to be bought by a Chinese company. As our networks move the functionality into the software, that will be running in the cloud over the Amazon Web Services infrastructure, which would have a huge potential security impact. An effective audit of where that equipment is now would be critical to knowing the level of that threat.

[Mr Jones]

I do not disagree with my hon. Friend. That is why we need to get into the idea of the audit. As I said earlier, we basically need a level playing field for operators; we do not want one to have an advantage over another. We also need a clear picture of what we are asking in terms of the audit. On the point she makes regarding web services and the cloud, there is an issue there that I think is worth referring to. It links today’s Bill with the National Security and Investment Bill, which we were discussing yesterday. There was a lot of discussion around what we define as critical—a point she has already raised.

For yesterday’s Bill, the question was what is critical to national infrastructure—for example, a company that is developing software that is then acquired by a state that we deem is a security risk to us. If that equipment or software is being used in our telecommunications network, does that mean that the network is compromised, and how do we guard against that? There are provisions in the National Security and Investment Bill that enable the Government to stop the acquisition of companies that we consider vital to our national security, but unless we know that in advance, how will we make that decision?

If we have a situation where a small company is providing software for part of our critical national infrastructure for telecoms, how will that be joined up? How will we be able to use the provisions in the National Security and Investment Bill, so that the Business Secretary can block the sale? Likewise, how do we get that connection? We can do that only by the Minister and Ofcom having a very clear indication from day one—I do not think it will be possible from day one, but from some time into it—what is in our network, not just now, but into the future. That will be important.

That brings us to the role of Ofcom. We have seen a development of regulators in this country. I am not a great fan of regulators, because I think it is a way for Ministers to palm off their responsibilities to third parties and then stand back and saying, “If it all goes wrong, it is nothing to do with me, guv—it is these independent organisations.” A long time ago—perhaps it is a bit old-fashioned—the General Post Office used to be responsible for this type of thing, and I am currently reading the excellent new history of GCHQ that has come out, which I recommend to everyone. It is fascinating to read about some of the challenges—things that apply to this Bill—such as, in the first world war, what was conceived as national security and who was responsible for it. Was it the GPO, the military or someone else?

How will Ofcom be able to look at a network and say, “Yes, we are satisfied that there is nothing in there that is a matter of national security”? They do not know. I do not think for one minute that we are going to have a situation whereby this Government or any future Government will suddenly throw so much money at Ofcom that a huge army of inspectors will be climbing up poles and going into operators’ offices to check source codes and so on. That is not going to happen.

From a practical point of view, the operators will have to be responsible for providing that information to Ofcom. Whether it is in the Bill or in the guidance, it must be clear what is expected of operators. It is no good looking back in hindsight and saying, “We should have done that,” when something happens. The operators will just say, “You did not tell us we had to do that,” or, “We didn’t know about that.” It has to be very clear, to prevent a competitive advantage between different companies, that there is one standard. They also have to know what we are asking for. Then, taking the telecoms hat off and putting the national security hat on, from the Government’s point of view, that needs to be very clear as well, because we need to be reassured that the components and software in those networks, now and in the future, are not a national security risk.

That brings us to an issue that I have already raised. I am not someone who thinks that every time we go to bed at night, we should look under the bed to see whether the Chinese are there, unlike some members of the China Research Group, but there is an issue about the way in which China will look at supply chains as a way of getting access, for two reasons. The first is national security. The second is commercial reasons—dominating the market, which is what China has done with Huawei. How will we identify that, without having some type of audit process? I do not think that everything to do with China is bad, but a huge number of the components in all our mobile phones in our pockets today will have come from China, including Ericsson and Nokia hardware.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

This is a remarkable day. This morning I was told that my contribution to the debate was inspiring, and now I am being told that I am talking sense—I thank the hon. Gentleman for making my day.

The hon. Gentleman is right, but he is also wrong. He is right in the sense that there are threats that will come through GCHQ and others—they will say to operators, “You’ve got to be careful of these things.” Where he is wrong, though, is with the idea that somehow GCHQ can take a guess at what is in the network. It does not have that capability. Going forward—the emphasis in this country, in the Bill, in terms of looking at telecoms security—yes, the bar has been raised substantially.

There will be occasions when GCHQ—it does it already —contacts operators and others to say, “Beware of this software or this thing.” I accept that as a proactive approach, but handling backwards will also be important. How do we have a gold-plated system, whereby we have GCHQ doing what the hon. Member for Bracknell suggested they are already doing, but one that also matches up with operators taking responsibility to say, “We have spotted something and are doing something about it”? It is pulling the two things together.

[Chi Onwurah]

Part of the challenge is that the operators do not know themselves and, as we have discussed, there are no incentives for them to find out. To give an example, Virgin Media took over from NTL, which I think took over from the 13 different cable providers in the franchises of the ’80s, and the BT mobile network was bought partially from EE—so there are takeovers and acquisitions, and partners may not know, and do not necessarily have an incentive to find out unless we put in a requirement.

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend makes the point precisely: the way in which telecoms have developed in this country has been piecemeal, only developing now into the four main operators. I hope we will try to get others into the market.

We are to blame for that, as consumers, because we have demanded ever lower prices for our mobile services. Does that suggest that the operators have taken shortcuts? No, I am not suggesting that, but consumer preferences have driven down price, and therefore the costs of what those operators provide in delivering the services that we all take for granted. Let us be honest: the Chinese saw the opening door for Huawei—that is why they bought into and flooded the market, putting Government loans behind it. Can we blame the operators for saying, “Well, actually, this is a good deal—we can get good deals”? But they cannot.

I am interested to know from the Minister how, looking forward, we are going to do that. I accept that something will be done under the regulations that the Government will put out, but how will we look backwards as well? As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central said, there is a lot of legacy equipment there, and it is important for Ofcom to have a clear understanding of what is in the networks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend is correct. A lot of the debate has been about hardware, but the biggest threat to our national security, in terms of telecoms, is from hacking and cyber-attacks. The changing nature of the threat is interesting. There are state actors and there is organised crime, acting on of behalf of states, but there is also, as referred to by my hon. Friend, some poor teenager who thought it was a good idea. The TalkTalk case showed the emphasis they put on the security of their network. Not just clause 4, but the whole Bill, puts the onus on the operators, which is why it is so welcome. Never again could they be accused of not knowing their responsibilities.

New section 105J requires providers to take “reasonable” steps to inform users about the risk, the nature of the security compromise, the steps the user could take in response, and the name and details of the person to contact. That is fine, but how to respond might be a matter for Ofcom. That is important, because people might then quickly take steps to stop compromises to their security.

The Bill lays out penalties for telecoms operators, but what about the consumer and people who have lost money because of data breaches? Do I assume that the Bill does not change that? It beefs it up, but I assume that any mitigation or compensation that should be paid to individuals who have been compromised would be an issue for Ofcom. When we had the TalkTalk compromise, getting TalkTalk to do anything was like trying to get blood out of a stone. That is important from the point of view of consumers.

It is important that the Secretary of State is informed, but how will that be done? I presume GCHQ and others would do that. Would that lead to lessons learned or to a notice being given to other operators that that has happened? Would that be done by Ofcom, the National Cyber Security Centre or GCHQ, or would it be a combination of all of them? It comes back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central: this is a risk and this clause puts the onus initially with the operators, where it should be.

[Chi Onwurah]

We are cracking on at such a pace that I lost my place somewhat. I had forgotten that we are now discussing clause 4. My apologies, Mr McCabe.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham has already addressed some of the points that I wanted to make, but let me say that we welcome the duty being placed on providers to report security incidents. I have long campaigned, in relation to cases such as the TalkTalk incident, to make that duty clearer and more comprehensive regarding the information that needs to be shared with users and those who are affected, and for them to have some kind of right of redress, which is effectively part of the Bill.

I welcome the requirement in clause 4 to inform others of security compromises, but will the Minister provide more clarity? There is some indication of the range of actors that the providers and Ofcom must inform, but I do not feel that there is an understanding of the level of information that will be shared with different actors. For example, if the public are to be informed of a security breach, compared with the requirement from the Information Commissioner’s Office, which, as I said, actually goes far enough, what level of information might be shared with other actors, such as other networks? My right hon. Friend talked about who else might be informed. It is also clear that the sharing of information will probably need to evolve over time, as the nature of compromises and their potential reach changes. I wonder how these requirements might be adapted to reflect that.

I will just say a little about the sharing of information with overseas regulators. If that is clearly set out in the Bill, I am unable to find it. Presumably, such data sharing will still have to conform with the requirements of our data protection legislation. Will it also reflect international data-sharing gateways for criminal prosecution purposes?

Those are just some general comments. We welcome the clause.

[Matt Warman]

I will reply briefly. On the point about compensation, essentially new section 105W of the Communications Act 2003, which is inserted by clause 8, covers the civil liability point, which I think opens the door that the right hon. Member for North Durham seeks to open. Then there are the notifications to industry of what is essentially best practice and recent threats. Of course, as he implied, there is a balance to be struck with the existing work of all those involved, but ultimately it would feed into the codes of practice, so there is both an informal and a formal mechanism, if I can put it like that.

On the hon. Lady’s final point about the international sharing of information, it would depend on the nature of the information, as she implied. Some of it would pertain to national security, and some of it would pertain to the kind of criminality that she has spoken about about, where there are existing provisions as well. In that sense, of course, it is all covered by our own data protection regime, which has the sorts of carve-outs I have just described but operates in that holistic framework.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chi Onwurah

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th January 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Jones]

Q Clearly there is Huawei’s domination in Europe, but what is the strategy when it comes to belt and road? We have seen investments in certain strategic areas such as the ports in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and other places. What is its strategy for telecoms? Is it a similar type of initiative?

Dr Drew: It is very similar. That is a great point to make. Pretty much wherever you see belt and road initiatives in, say, a port or supply chain of a physical good, you will see simultaneous investment and market input in a telecoms sense. There is a digital silk road as much as there is a belt and road initiative in the physical goods and supply chain sense.

They are becoming increasingly entwined fields; 10, maybe 15 years ago you could easily have seen a distinct separation between the physical supply chain and the digital supply chain. That differentiation is fading as we progress through time, and I think the Chinese have worked that out perhaps faster than we have and they are rapidly making inroads in order to amplify that effect and gain the benefits of it.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thank you for providing your expertise, Dr Drew. We heard from one of our previous witnesses that the security aspects here might be part of, if you like, a battle for the heart of the internet when it comes to embedding values into the standards that drive it. You seem to be saying that that is a part of China’s requirements to monitor and surveil its domestic population, so I wondered what your thoughts were on that expressly.

Also, you have great experience in evolving security threats. In your view, does the Bill address major telecommunications threats to national security—future and evolving threats? For example, do you think this Bill would have helped to mitigate the impact of the recent SolarWinds Orion network monitoring hack, which was also mentioned by a previous witness?

Dr Drew: I will start with the question of values. I am a great believer that technology and values and norms of behaviour are implicitly connected: you cannot separate them. It should be explicitly understood that it is an implicit truth. I believe—and I have stated this before to some of your colleagues and civil servants in various Departments—that the CCP has realised that the great firewall of China, which tries to police content within China, has holes in it and is not going to last, or was not going to last, given the direction that the internet, freedom of communication and transfer of information is going.

The next logical step, and what I believe is happening, is that if you cannot control the internet within the great firewall, it is better to be able to shape the internet everywhere, both outside and inside it. I would argue that a lot of the technological standard-setting that you see take place in the ITU and elsewhere is essentially that taking place, as is the use of social media platforms to harvest data, which is then used to aid in the censorship of domestic content within China.

With regard to evolving threats and the Bill specifically, I think that the Bill goes a very long way towards pre-emptively meeting threats that are likely to come in the future. My biggest issue echoes what I caught of the previous witness statements: the fact that it is a matter of capacity for the institutions that are given this responsibility—that is, Ofcom—and the ability to change their culture to actively engage within that framework and take action to ensure these standards are met and kept to. Those are my biggest queries about the ability of this Bill to be as forward-looking as we would like it to be.

Finally, with regard to SolarWinds, I think this Bill is aptly timed in a way, given the context of this particular threat. SolarWinds was a perfect example of a supply chain security risk, and a vector of attack that went through a diverse supply chain to meet what should have been some of the most secure systems that the United States had.

Telecoms will, as I have already said, be the backbone of all the UK’s future advancements of technology in all the things we are seeking to develop within our borders. The hardest thing to do as an attacker is to gain access. We should be making it as hard as possible to gain access; we should be making sure that there is as much oversight and understanding as is possible of where our supply chains go, the standards that they should meet, and whether those standards are being met, and I think this Bill goes some way towards that. I would argue that it needs to be continually updated, checked and maintained. This is not a one-off: times change, and the internet changes faster. Those would pretty much be my recommendations.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chi Onwurah

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th January 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Jones]

Q Not to cut across you, but, while I accept all that, if from the operator’s point of view they have just invested a lot of capital in ripping out equipment and putting new equipment in up until 2027, what will the incentive then be for those operators necessarily to look at new technologies?

Helen Duncan: I do not think it is necessarily the case that they will just use Ericsson and Nokia equipment. Vodafone, for instance, has committed to equipping something like 2,500 cell sites with open RAN equipment, so they are taking a forward-looking view and trying to stimulate that themselves.

Dr Cleevely: If I may intervene here as well, it is curious, is it not? The economists will tell you that sunk costs are sunk costs and you should always move forward, and that is something to hold on to. Human nature says, “Well, we’ve invested in this—let’s see if we can sweat that asset to make the most of it.” A constructive dialogue with your finance director or chief financial officer is always an essential part of all this, and, for example, it is important to understand what is driving the risk that a company is running, its weighted average cost of capital and its cost of borrowing on the market.

Essentially the point is this: if you can get more business and improve your service, and get more customers and make more money, as a result of doing investment, then that is what you will do. The key point here is whether we can find a way of making it clear and straightforward to the most truculent of finance directors or chief financial officers that this is a good investment for the future. In there lies the key, because you need to get the incentives right.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Welcome to all of you, and thank you so much for joining us. May I say, particularly to Helen Duncan—I should also have mentioned this earlier when we had Heba Bevan—that it is great to have two other female electrical engineers giving evidence to the Committee. I hope we have many more such qualified representatives of the technology sector in Committees in the future.

We have talked a little about how we got here; Helen, you worked for Marconi, and I worked for Northern Telecom, which bought STC, one of our last UK companies providing telecoms equipment. Without putting words into your mouth, I think the situation could be characterised by a lack of investment in innovation and in British sovereign capability. Now that we are seeking to reverse that, or to jump ahead of that, what interventions could best guarantee the long-term security and resilience of the UK telecoms network, with UK sovereign capability supporting it? Is the £250 million diversification strategy set to achieve that? Can you give examples—I am looking for quite concrete examples—of what you might add or change? David, you talked about needing to give the right incentives to the mobile operators. The telecoms supply chain review was quite clear that there is not an incentive right now in the supply chain to deliver security in mobile networks. What interventions and what incentives should there be?

Helen Duncan: Starting from how we got into this situation, in the 1990s we had three incumbent base station manufacturing companies in the UK, which were Orbitel in Nottinghamshire, and Motorola and Lucent Technologies, both in Swindon. They survived for different lengths of time: Orbitel closed down in 1996 when Ericsson took over, Motorola ceased base station manufacturing in 2002, but stayed open and was then sold to Nokia, and Lucent became Alcatel-Lucent and was closed down. Mergers and acquisitions have clearly played a huge part, as did the dotcom bubble and, as I mentioned, the removal of funding from the defence sector.

Heba made the point that to support semiconductor manufacture in the UK, the £250 million would not even start to scratch the surface. We need to concentrate a little bit further up the food chain. We have some very good capability in this country in component and subsystem manufacture based around the chips. We have some good design capability for chips that are then manufactured in the larger foundries elsewhere in the world. Supporting those activities, the design and the manufacture of components and subsystems, would give us a good basis and improve resilience.

I also want to mention that we have some capability in this country in the test and measurement sector with Spirent and VIAVI Solutions—although VIAVI is an American-owned company, it manufactures RF and wireless test equipment in the UK. By definition, test is ahead of the curve on development. If you can make equipment to test something, you can actually make that equipment, because it is much more complicated to make the test equipment than it is to make the base station or the handset itself. Those companies deserve our support as well. That was a very long question, Chi; I am not sure I covered every aspect you were asking about.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chi Onwurah

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 14th January 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Jones]

Q The debate to date has mainly been around hardware, but you raised the issue—the bigger threat, certainly that I see, is from hacking and the vulnerability there. In terms of diversification, to be honest, we will have two vendors for the next considerable time, so when we talk about the diversification strategy and getting new vendors into the market, what timescales are we looking at? Are we actually putting all our eggs into the open RAN basket? I agree that there is the possibility of advancing that sector in the UK. Realistically, we will have those two, one of which, we know, is financially vulnerable. What difference would having just one vendor make to you?

Howard Watson: Let me work through that. First, from our perspective, given that we do have quite a large amount of BT in our mobile network, which is with the high-risk vendor, we have a large swap-out programme already under way. Effectively, we already use Nokia to extend their reach, but also to introduce Ericsson. That essentially means that I will be replacing a significant amount of my network over the next seven years.

It is quite difficult for me to start introducing new opportunities and new options into that, certainly in the early part of that. For my network, I see the opportunities in the latter part of this decade, not the early part. That does not mean that there will not be opportunities to try open RAN in some of the rural areas or to conduct some trials with the other vendors that we have talked about. It is very much an industry approach that we are taking here. Some of my colleagues may be able to move a bit earlier. It is important that we collaborate and work as a UK set of operators with the Government to make sure that we have the right rich set of solutions.

We would not want to come down to just one vendor. That would certainly be a worry for many reasons, so we need to continue to ensure that, in the short term, we absolutely have the choice of two.

Alex Towers: Given the timeframes that Howard has described, it is a five to seven-year cycle of replacement for the vendor. That is why it makes sense, we think, to go big now on large-scale trials of things like open RAN. The important investment in R&D and the £250 million is a good step towards that, but we will probably need some more, because we need to be ready for the next cycle if it is going to be a workable solution in future.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q Thanks very much for joining us. We have heard that open RAN will not be mature for another eight years. Do you agree with that assessment? In that case, as you have outlined, we have two vendors and potential financial concerns about one. Can you say categorically whether it is possible to have network security with only one full-scale vendor to choose from and whether it is possible to have that with two?

Secondly, we heard from Sir Richard Dearlove, the previous head of MI5, that when Huawei was first used as a vendor or equipment supplier by BT, it was not considered worth informing Ministers of that fact, despite what he considered to be evident security concerns. Can you say what in the Bill changes that so that the Government of the day will be better aware of ongoing and future security concerns?

Thirdly, on behalf of Catherine West, on international collaboration, what presence do you have on standards bodies? Can you say what your budget is for research and development so that we can see how that compares with the £250 million on offer?



Alex Towers: I will defer to Howard on the questions about standards and technical details. On your point about the relationship with Government, I do not think that any of us were around in 2005, but I know that there is some sort of contested story about exactly who was told what about the introduction of Huawei. You would—[Inaudible.] We have moved a long way on that. We have a very close working relationship with the NCSC and with other parts of Government, and we would be very confident that we are constantly in contact with them about exactly the mix of suppliers that we are using. The introduction through the Bill of TSRs will take that even further, so we would be very confident that we have got a good enough structure there to ensure that any concerns that any part of Government had would be captured and dealt with, and Ofcom is also now in a position to regulate.

The question about relying on just the one supplier is less a concern about security and more one about the commercial resilience of that position. Howard can probably say a little bit more about the standards and the technical questions around that.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chi Onwurah

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Carry-over motion & Carry-over motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 30th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the right hon. Member for that intervention, and indeed for his contribution to the debate. I agree with him, although I think that is something we need to work out and probe in Committee, because currently there is no reference to that, or no plan to do that. I think we should certainly be taking into account and using our existing resources, and we all know that these kinds of resources and skills are both expensive and hard to find at the moment. The right hon. Member makes an important point.

On 14 July, the Secretary of State, who is not in his place, said in this House that he had

“set out a clear and ambitious diversification strategy.”—[Official Report, 14 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 1377.]

I asked him repeatedly over the summer when he would publish this clear strategy that he had already set out. Answer came there none, and I could only conclude that he had misspoken. However, I did think that today we would get that strategy, but unfortunately not. Yes, there is actually a diversification strategy, which has been published, but it is neither clear nor ambitious. It is far more concerned with bringing new vendors into the UK than with developing our sovereign technological capability. Indeed, as it diversifies opportunities for Nokia and Ericsson, we could call it an effective Scandinavian industrial strategy. Apart from a vague commitment to link the scale of home-grown suppliers to the Government’s broader growth and productivity agenda, there is no clear plan—no plan at all—to build UK sovereign capabilities, which the right hon. Members for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) and for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) emphasised as being important.

Just today, Mobile UK, the mobile operators industrial body, emphasised that the Bill and the 5G diversification strategy are intrinsically linked but not, it would appear, by the Government. The diversification strategy also does not refer to fibre, although the Bill applies to our fibre networks too and may impact the Government’s constantly shifting roll-out targets.

Network operators need to be confident in the maturity, performance, integration and security credentials of new vendors and technologies before they are deployed in their main networks. We agree with the Secretary of State that the Government can help accelerate that process, and in doing so there is potential to create opportunities for the UK to take the lead, as well as much-needed high-skilled jobs. The hon. Members for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Bracknell (James Sunderland) all agreed about the importance of diversification, but all the diversification strategy says about developing UK technology, jobs and capability is that it will be part of the industrial strategy, which we have yet to see. Clearly, we do not have a diversification strategy.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree the Bill will have to dovetail closely with the National Security and Investment Bill? If new developments were taken over by foreign entities, that could be a security risk as well. However, as we were told last week, the responsibility for that lies with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, not DCMS.

[Chi Onwurah]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. He is absolutely right. The question of how the diversification strategy delivers home-grown capability and protects that as it grows and strengthens has been avoided.

As the shadow Secretary of State said, it is important that everyone can benefit from 5G, both in our technological capability and in using it. There is a digital divide in this country: 11 million adults lack one or more basic digital skills and 10% of households do not have internet access. 5G has the potential to increase digital inclusion, providing greater access to broadband. As the hon. Members for West Dorset (Chris Loder) and for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) highlighted, digital technology can be a great leveller, but we need to ensure that the infrastructure and skills base exist for everyone to take advantage of the opportunities it provides. Digital inclusion requires political will, urgent action and a Government who understand the importance of universal digital suffrage. Government interventions on that have been brief—not quite as brief as the intervention of the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) in the debate, but far less eloquent.

As a chartered engineer, I want to finish by celebrating the potential of 5G, which can truly transform our businesses, our industries and our daily lives. It will not only vastly improve our connectivity and browsing experience but support new enabling technologies, from the internet of things to artificial intelligence. If the first industrial revolution was powered by engines, the fourth will be powered by data. As hon. Members have observed, 5G is essential for innovations from driverless cars to smart cities, and to addressing the climate emergency through monitoring and improving our energy efficiency. Some estimates predict that 5G could mean productivity savings for the UK of up to £6 billion a year on top of energy and waste reductions that internet of things devices could enable.

We must get this right. As we all agree, our national security is priceless, but until we see a detailed plan, a proper impact assessment and an industrial strategy, the Opposition will remain deeply concerned that the Government are not prepared to make the interventions necessary to ensure that our national security is safeguarded.

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chi Onwurah

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. All our constituents have had to suffer cuts to services, so for the Secretary of State to say that austerity is over is an insult to our intelligence.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Like Liverpool, Durham County Council has lost nearly half its budget since 2010, and the cuts are still going on. This Budget contained no change to next year’s cuts in revenue support grant, so another £40 million will be taken out of the council’s budget.

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The services that make such a difference to our constituents’ daily lives face increased cuts, which is why our constituents know that austerity is not ending under this Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He could give a lesson in basic economics to most Conservative Members.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Is it not a fact that debt was 43% of GDP when Labour came to office in 1997 and went down to 40% by 2006? That was down to good management of the economy before the crash. Through those years, the Conservative party was not just agreeing to our spending commitments, but asking for more expenditure, so we will have no lessons from the Tory party about reckless spending.

[Chi Onwurah]

Absolutely. The Conservative party initiated and promoted the reckless deregulation of our financial sector, which contributed significantly to the financial crisis, and then failed to manage the economy in such a way as to ensure sustained, significant growth. Under this Government, we have had half the historical level of growth.

The prognosis for growth is reflected in business investment, which is the lowest in the G7. We are the only major economy in which investment is falling. Our productivity is 15% lower than in other major economies, and it has not grown this slowly since the Napoleonic wars—there is an achievement. The average real wage growth since the second world war is 2.4% a year, but under the Conservatives, pay has fallen by 3% and the UK remains the most regionally unequal country in Europe.

We needed a big Budget to rebalance our economy and to provide the industrial strategy with the backing it needs to address the serious problems, but the Budget is deeply disappointing. We got an arbitrary announcement of more funding for the national productivity investment fund, but that will be in 2023, with no information on where the money will be allocated.

On research and development, we had another repackaging of money that was announced last year dressed up as additional funding when, in fact, of the £1.6 billion cited by the Government only £180 million, barely 10%, is new. Although we are pleased that there has been a marked increase in R&D expenditure, there is still no overarching strategy for its direction or for how the Government intend to meet their target of spending 2.4% of GDP on R&D. We are a world leader in science, but, let us be clear, the Government’s 2.4% target is average when it comes to R&D spend. Labour’s target is 3% to become one of the leading nations in R&D spend.

What little information there was in the Budget again focused on sexy high-tech areas like nuclear fusion and quantum mechanics. As an engineer, I understand the desire of the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State to be associated with sexy technologies, and it is of course a vital part of our industrial strategy to support the industries of the future, but the Secretary of State has repeatedly failed to recognise that supporting our biggest sectors to improve their productivity through technology and investment is so important.

Retail is one of the biggest employers outside the public sector, and it is facing a unique crisis. Over 100,000 jobs have been lost in the past three years, and over 25,000 shops stand empty. High streets are the centre of communities, and they should and can continue to be vibrant spaces of which communities are proud, but to achieve that we need proactive policies from the Government, as Labour have been demanding for months.

The Secretary of State has been a bit cheeky and stolen a number of Labour’s policies in this area. A register of empty properties, an adjustment to business rates and a high street taskforce were just some of the policy proposals in the conference speech of my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State. It would be churlish of me to demand our policies back, but that is where the consensus ends.

The Government’s overall package, “Our Plan for the High Street,” simply does not do enough. Business rates relief would not have saved a single House of Fraser or Debenhams—the vast majority of retail workers are employed in such shops. The British Retail Consortium has said that the Government

“must engage in more extensive business rates reform to help all retailers and their employees through this period of transformation.”

The CBI responded:

“Smaller businesses will be relieved by the support on Business Rates… But larger retailers and manufactures—and the millions they employ across the UK—will continue to suffer needlessly until there is a full, in-depth review.”

Yet the Budget contained no commitment to a review of business rates.

The future high streets fund is yet another fund allocated out of the national productivity investment fund, and there are no details of where the money will be targeted, who will be responsible for administering it or how quickly funds will be made available. The proposals for planning reform have missed the point. It seems that the Government’s idea to save our high streets is to turn them into non-high streets. Frankly, much more work is needed if we are to protect our high streets and the millions of workers who rely on them.

Further Education Colleges (North-east)

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chi Onwurah

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jones]

Yes, I will. It is a good example of how local colleges are taking the lead, not by just putting on courses that they hope people will come to, but by working with employers to ensure that the courses they offer are needed by young people and adult learners and by local businesses. This might be an old-fashioned thing, but in our region, the colleges and the education sector are raising awareness that careers in engineering and manufacturing are a way forward and not a thing of the past.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend raises an important point: further education colleges in the north-east already work together and are forward-looking. Newcastle College is engaging with new industries, such as the aeronautical industry and the energy industries. Does he share my concern that the area-based reviews may take the focus away from what is best for our industry and our young people? Too much time may be spent focusing on how to respond to the review. I would like to see more work on adult education in the north-east, particularly given the cuts to local services.

[Mr Jones]

I agree with my hon. Friend, because one of the important points is collaboration between colleges. Looking back, one of the problems in the further education sector was where we had competition between different colleges. That network of working together, which provides opportunities for young people and adult learners, is important. Speak to anyone in the industry and they will say that the 16-year-old leaving school today is unlikely to be in the same job when they retire at 65 or 67 or whatever the retirement age will be when they come to retire. They will need constant on-the-job training and will need to re-access the education system, so the further education sector is vital.

I chaired a meeting last night at an event organised by the Industry and Parliament Trust to talk about the aerospace sector, which has huge potential for growth not only in engineering skills, but in the soft skills of process management and other areas as well. All our colleges, certainly in Durham, are encouraging not only engineering apprentices, who are vital, but the growth sector of tourism in the north-east. I know that Houghall college and also Northumberland deal with land skills and agriculture, which people might think are industries of the past, but they are very important to rural communities in the north-east, and certainly the tourism sector is a growth area across the north-east.

I understand that the Government will want to tackle bad performance, and I support that. If a college or any institution is failing its learners, it needs to be dealt with, but I am not sure how the review will fit in with the rest of the education system. For example, I have already mentioned New College’s sponsorship of two academies, because it saw a clear need to link back into education. The sector is not separate from the rest of the education system, so I want to know how local schools and suchlike will be involved in the process.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland mentioned travel, which is a stark issue in my area and many rural areas. Many young people have to travel quite long distances to access courses. It might be easy in large cities such as London or Birmingham where there is a choice of providers close together, but in my constituency and in hers—for example, in Northumberland—people have to travel long distances, so the issue is not just about the number of colleges, but where they are. I totally agree with her that the abolition of the education maintenance allowance had a huge effect on young people’s ability to access courses.

Transport in the North-East

Debate between Lord Beamish and Chi Onwurah

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) on securing this important debate. What has come out of it so far is that there is a degree of consensus on some of the issues, so I do not wish to sound like the little boy who says the emperor has no clothes, but I have serious concerns about the quality bus contract going before the combined authority on 22 October. I will also briefly touch on the issues of rail and air.

The quality contract proposals have been in gestation since 2011—longer than the pregnancy of an African elephant. If we look at what is proposed, we have to question whether we have a solution looking for a problem, rather than a problem looking for a solution. The quality contract legislation was rightly introduced to address market failure. I accept what hon. Members have said about bus services being withdrawn, and that is market failure in terms of the effects on our constituents. However, no one can argue that the bus market in the north-east is failing from an economic point of view.

I have grave concerns about the quality contract. The impact on my constituency, in County Durham, and on the areas represented by Members from Northumberland, will be quite pronounced. The proposal from the combined authority provides for an exclusive contract to run all bus services in Tyne and Wear, but we must understand that people’s transport movements do not recognise local authority boundaries—that is the problem with the proposal. The hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) suggested a solution that looked at the entire north-east, and that would be a better solution.

The quality contract is also being sold on the basis that it is the only way we will get an Oyster-type system. No, it is not, because advances have already been made on that issue. I support those moves, as I think all elected Members from the north-east, from all political parties, would, because they will make travelling easier. However, I do not recognise the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) that the ticketing system at the moment is very complex. It is not. The Tyne and Wear ticket system is one of the most integrated anywhere in the country. Likewise there is an integrated system in County Durham, with moves by bus operators on shared ticketing and making sure that people get the lowest prices. Yes, there is a need for action to improve integration across the region, but I do not think that there is a need to go down the quality service contract route to achieve that.

My constituency borders Tyne and Wear and it is a commuter constituency these days. The days of large-scale employment in coal mines are gone. People commute northwards to Sunderland and Newcastle, and southwards to jobs in Teesside. Twenty-five per cent. of the cross-border bus traffic originates in Tyne and Wear, and that is part of the problem with quality contracts. Those are the bus companies’ most profitable routes. That profitability sustains the rest of the bus network in rural County Durham and infrastructure such as Stanley bus station, and the bus station in Chester-le-Street. If that profitability were to be taken away there would be serious problems. My fear about Tyne and Wear’s proposals is that without that profitability there would be a direct problem in County Durham—and not just with sustaining the existing bus network; the system would affect garages and local employment, because of closures. With the franchise, there will be only one winner—the bus company that wins the prize of running buses in Tyne and Wear. There are currently three operators in my constituency and two will be losers. That will have a direct effect on the funding of existing services. I am also concerned that with the knock-on effect of the through route to Teesside and other parts south of the county bus operators will find it difficult to make the necessary profit.

Many of the ideas for the bus quality contract have not been really thought through. It is not possible to detach, somehow, rural County Durham and Northumberland from Tyne and Wear, as is being proposed.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes some interesting points about profitability, but do I understand him right? Is he arguing that the bus companies should be allowed to maintain excess profits on some routes so that they, the private sector, rather than our elected representatives, can decide how to subsidise rural routes?

[Mr Jones]

I am sorry; that is what actually happens in practice with bus operators. There is an argument that somehow it is nasty to make a profit; but there are profitable routes, and that is nothing to do with the bus companies. The main route from Chester-le-Street to Newcastle, for example, is a profitable route. Why? Because people use it. That is a matter of fact, and irrespective of what politicians say it will not change. People vote with their feet and use the route.

[Chi Onwurah]

I certainly was not arguing that making profits is in some sense wrong. I was arguing—and it is market economics—that making excess profits is wrong, and it should not be for the private sector to determine which routes to subsidise with, effectively, public money. It should be for democratically elected representatives.

[Mr Jones]

No, I am sorry; my hon. Friend does not understand the system. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but she does not. If there are subsidised secured routes that are paid for by the taxpayer, the taxpayer can determine where they go. That is nothing to do with the bus company. My hon. Friend spoke of excessive profits, on those routes that are profitable, but there has to be money in the system; she should be aware, as I think many people are not, that under the current proposals Tyne and Wear council tax payers—I am not one—will underwrite its bus service system, with consequences for them if passenger numbers go up or more subsidy is needed.

I am not arguing for the old free-for-all, but that is not what we have. I remember the disastrous days of bus deregulation in 1986, with buses chasing buses, but we do not have that system now. A far better way forward for us would involve some type of regulation—and if the threat could be used as a bargaining chip with the bus companies I would totally agree with that. However, it is not a panacea for every issue. Quite a few hon. Members have talked about bus services being withdrawn, but a quality contract will not prevent that. They will be withdrawn unless more money is put into the system.

The hon. Member for Stockton South raised an interesting point, which is one that I make constantly to officers in County Durham. The problem is that in some of the areas in question buses are not the solution. We need to think of more creative ways to transport people from isolated communities, such as taxi-buses or alert-buses. I accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) said: even in urban areas there can be isolated places. We need a system to feed the people who live in those places into the main, profitable system. That would be far better than to think that the solution is a bus. Quaking Houses is a nice rural village in my constituency, but there is not the demand for a double-decker bus on a Sunday. Reactive taxi services, for example, could take people to central hubs that would feed them into the network. That is how we need to think—not just focusing on buses, but more creatively.