National Cyber Security Centre

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Lord McLoughlin

Monday 16th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, as I have said, we are working across government and internationally. I think we all recognise the catch-up element with the evolution of these new methods. There are transformational elements with new innovations—that is why I referred to the AI summit, which is intended not just to avail us with the opportunities these new technologies present, as the noble Lord articulated, but to address the challenge and high risk presented to government, industry, sectors and individuals.

Noble Lords may recall the sad occasion when this very Parliament was attacked physically. I remember the emotional exchanges and statements made at the time, including by my noble friend Lady Evans. There was another attack at that time, on the parliamentary emails of many Members of this House and the other place. The knowledge base available for mitigation was limited, as was awareness. I think most Members and colleagues were concerned about getting their machines and devices up and working rather than about the data loss. The more learning, education and information we can share, the better we will be at mitigating some of these risks.

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

My Lords, a company which is the subject of a cyberattack may not wish to be publicly identified, but they may have suffered severe financial problems. How is HMRC taking this into account and giving those companies some breathing time to put right what may have happened to them? It is all very well saying it in one section, but is there a cross-government approach to this issue?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I assure my noble friend that we do have a cross-government approach to this. He raises a very important point about both risk and the cost associated with cyberattacks, and we are very much seized of this. I have already outlined specific schemes and support. It is very important that we share this, however, so in the interests of full information, I will write to my noble friend and put on record in the Library the number of schemes that are available for information sharing and the support that can be offered to those impacted.