Defence Personnel Data Breach

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My noble friend—“General”, “Sir”—raised a number of very important points. He is, as always, ahead of me. In preparing for this Statement, I have not yet gone through my notifications to see what steps I should be taking next.

This is a very serious issue and that is why we have acted in the way we have. We take data responsibility extremely seriously. That is why, as soon as we became aware of the incident, we stopped the processing of all payments and isolated the network, enabling us to review what happened. As I said in the follow-up to the Statement, pay runs have been unaffected, including monthly salaries and larger payments. We understand that this is a distressing time for service personnel. I would like to reassure them and all noble Lords that we are dealing with this matter with the utmost seriousness and haste.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for repeating the Secretary of State’s Statement. In the remark he just made, he illustrated the real dangers presented to military personnel with the release of addresses into the hands of a hostile state—a malign actor, as we have been told—which undoubtedly will compromise the safety of military personnel, past and present. It also, of course, endangers national security and is of a piece with the espionage and other cybercrimes to which some of us, even here in Parliament, have been subjected.

Can the Minister tell us whether, in this instance, the private contractor entrusted with this data will be brought before the Intelligence and Security Committee to explain exactly what happened? This should not simply be subject to an internal review. How many other private contractors currently hold Ministry of Defence data? If and when this hack is attributed to the People’s Republic of China, as was briefed by the Government yesterday morning, will the state entities responsible be sanctioned and not merely individual hackers? Are we in touch with our Five Eyes allies to co-ordinate a comprehensive and effective response safeguarding our national interest and, in this instance, our service personnel?

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

The noble Lord raised a number of very important points. It is difficult to comment on them because of the ongoing investigation and the sensitivity around it. In respect of his request that the supplier is brought before the committee, that is certainly a reasonable suggestion that I will take back to the department.