Global IT Outage

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question and for his huge support for me in my previous role as chair of the London Resilience Forum. Although the outage is not assessed to be a security incident or cyberattack, the issues that he raises will be covered in the cybersecurity and resilience Bill included in the King’s Speech. This will strengthen our defences and ensure that more essential digital services than ever before are protected. For example, it will look at expanding the remit of the existing regulation, putting regulators on a stronger footing and increasing the reporting requirements to build a better picture in government of cyber threats.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, among the companies most adversely affected in this country were airlines. Many thousands of passengers were hugely inconvenienced. How should they be compensated, and should CrowdStrike be held accountable?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I think we all have huge sympathy for those affected. As the noble Lord rightly says, thousands of people were affected on the day. However, compensation is a matter for the individual operators and subject to consumer rules, which would cover any entitlement to compensation or refunds.