Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Committee stage
Monday 16th December 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, a key aspect of data protection rests in how it restricts the use of personal data once it has been collected. The public need confidence that their data will be used for the reasons they had shared it and not further used in ways that breach their legitimate expectations—or they will become suspicious as regards providing their data. The underlying theme that we heard on the previous group was the danger of losing public trust, which very much applies in the area of law enforcement and national security.

However, Schedules 4 and 5 would remove the requirement to consider the legitimate expectations of the individuals whose data is being processed, or the impact that this would have on their rights, for the purposes of national security, crime detection and prevention, safeguarding or answering to a request by a public authority. Data used for the purposes listed in these schedules would not need to undergo either a balancing test under Article 6.1(f) or a compatibility test under Article 6.4 of the UK GDPR. The combined effect of these provisions would be to authorise almost unconditional data sharing for law enforcement and other public security purposes while, at the same time, reducing accountability and traceability over how the police use the information being shared with them.

As with the previous DPDI Bill, Clauses 87 to 89 of this Bill grant the Home Secretary and police powers to view and use people’s personal data through the use of national security certificates and designation notices, which are substantially the same as Clauses 28 to 30 of the previous DPDI Bill. This risks further eroding trust in law enforcement authorities. Accountability for access to data for law enforcement purposes should not be lowered, and data sharing should be underpinned by a robust test to ensure that individuals’ rights and expectations are not disproportionately impacted. It is a bafflement as to why the Government are so slavishly following their predecessor and believe that these new and unaccountable powers are necessary.

By opposing that Clause 81 stand part, I seek to retain the requirement for police forces to record the reason they are accessing data from a police database. The public need more, not less, transparency and accountability over how, why and when police staff and officers access and use records about them. Just recently, the Met Police admitted that they investigated more than 100 staff over the inappropriate accessing of information in relation to Sarah Everard. This shows that the police can and do act to access information inappropriately, and there may well be less prominent cases where police abuse their power by accessing information without worry for the consequences.

Regarding Amendments 126, 128 and 129, Rights and Security International has repeatedly argued that the Bill would violate the UK’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. On Amendment 126, the requirements in the EU law enforcement directive for logging are, principally, to capture in all cases the justification for personal data being examined, copied, amended or disclosed when it is processed for a law enforcement process—the objective is clearly to ensure that data is processed only for a legitimate purpose—and, secondarily, to identify when, how and by whom the data has been accessed or disclosed. This ensures that individual accountability is captured and recorded.

Law enforcement systems in use in the UK typically capture some of the latter information in logs, but very rarely do they capture the former. Nor, I am informed, do many commodity IT solutions on the market capture why data was accessed or amended by default. For this reason, a long period of time was allowed under the law enforcement directive to modify legacy systems installed before May 2016, which, in the UK, included services such as the police national computer and the police national database, along with many others at a force level. This transitional relief extended to 6 May 2023, but UK law enforcement did not, in general, make the required changes. Nor, it seems, did it ensure that all IT systems procured after 6 May 2016 included a strict requirement for LED-aligned logging. By adopting and using commodity and hyperscaler cloud services, it has exacerbated this problem.

In early April 2023, the Data Protection Act 2018 (Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023 were laid before Parliament. These regulations had the effect of unilaterally extending the transitional relief period under the law enforcement directive for the UK from May 2023 to May 2026. The Government now wish to strike the requirement to capture the justification for any access to data completely, on the basis that this would free up to 1.5 million hours a year of valuable police time for our officers so that they can focus on tackling crime on our streets, rather than being bogged down by administration, and that this would save approximately £42.8 million per year in taxpayers’ money.

This is a serious legislative issue on two counts: it removes important evidence that may identify whether a person was acting with malicious intent when accessing data, as well as removing any deterrent effect of them having to do so; and it directly deviates from a core part of the law enforcement directive and will clearly have an impact on UK data adequacy. The application of effective control over access to data is very much a live issue in policing, and changing the logging requirement in this way does nothing to improve police data management. Rather, it excuses and perpetuates bad practice. Nor does it increase public confidence.

Clause 87(7) introduces new Section 78A into the Act. This lays down a number of exemptions and exclusions from Part 3 of that Act when the processing is deemed to be in the interests of national security. These exemptions are wide ranging, and include the ability to suspend or ignore principles 2 through 6 in Part 3, and thus run directly contrary to the provisions and expectations of the EU law enforcement directive. Ignoring those principles in itself also negates many of the controls and clauses in Part 3 in its entirety. As a result, they will almost certainly result in the immediate loss of EU law-enforcement adequacy.

I welcome the ministerial letter from the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, of 6 November, but was he really saying that all the national security exemption clause does is bring the 2018 Act into conformity with the GDPR? I very much hope that the Minister will set out for the record whether that is really the case and whether it is really necessary to safeguard national security. Although it is, of course, appropriate and necessary for the UK to protect its national security interests, it is imperative that balance remains to protect the rights of a data subject. These proposals do not, as far as we can see, strike that balance.

Clause 88 introduces the ability of law enforcement, competent authorities and intelligence agencies to act as joint controllers in some circumstances. If Clause 88 and associated clauses go forward to become law, they will almost certainly again result in withdrawal of UK law enforcement adequacy and will quite likely impact on the TCA itself.

Amendment 127 is designed to bring attention to the fact that there are systemic issues with UK law enforcement’s new use of hyperscaler cloud service providers to process personal data. These issues stem from the fact that service providers’ standard contracts and terms of service fail to meet the requirements of Part 3 of the UK’s Data Protection Act 2018 and the EU law enforcement directive. UK law enforcement agencies are subject to stringent data protection laws, including Part 3 of the DPA and the GDPR. These laws dictate how personal data, including that of victims, witnesses, suspects and offenders, can be processed. Part 3 specifically addresses data transfers to third countries, with a presumption against such transfers unless strictly necessary. This contrasts with UK GDPR, which allows routine overseas data transfer with appropriate safeguards.

Cloud service providers routinely process data outside the UK and lack the necessary contractual guarantees and legal undertakings required by Part 3 of the DPA. As a result, their use for law enforcement data processing is, on the face of it, not lawful. This non-compliance creates significant financial exposure for the UK, including potential compensation claims from data subjects for distress or loss. The sheer volume of data processed by law enforcement, particularly body-worn video footage, exacerbates the financial risk. If only a small percentage of cases result in claims, the compensation burden could reach hundreds of millions of pounds annually. The Government’s attempts to change the law highlight the issue and suggest that past processing on cloud service providers has not been in conformity with the UK GDPR and the DPA.

The current effect of Section 73(4)(b) of the Data Protection Act is to restrict transfers for competent authorities who may have a legitimate operating need, and should possess the internal capability to assess that need, from making transfers to recipients who are not relevant authorities or international organisations and that cloud service provider. This amendment is designed to probe what impact removal of this restriction would have and whether it would enable them to do so where such a transfer is justified and necessary. I beg to move.

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 124. I am sorry that I was not able to speak on this issue at Second Reading. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, for his support, and I am sorry that he has not been able to stay, due to a prior engagement.

Eagle-eyed Ministers and the Opposition Front Bench will recognise that this was originally tabled as an amendment to the Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill. It is still supported by the Police Federation. I am grateful to the former Member of Parliament for Loughborough for originally raising this with me, and I thank the Police Federation for its assistance in briefing us in preparing this draft clause. The Police Federation understands that the Home Secretary is supportive of the objective of this amendment, so I shall listen with great interest to what the Minister has to say.

This is a discrete amendment designed to address an extremely burdensome and potentially unnecessary redaction exercise, in relation to a situation where the police are preparing a case file for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision. Given that this issue was talked about in the prior Bill, I do not intend to go into huge amounts of detail because we rehearsed the arguments there, but I hope very much that with the new Government there might be a willingness to entertain this as a change in the law.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

3rd reading
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome Amendments 5 and 6, as well as the amendments that reflect the work done and comments made in earlier stages of this debate by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy. Of course, we are not quite there yet with this Bill, but we are well on the way as this is the Bill’s last formal stage in this Chamber before it goes back to the House of Commons.

Amendments 5 and 6 relate to the categorisation of platforms. I do not want to steal my noble friend’s thunder, but I echo the comments made about the engagement both from my noble friend the Minister and from the Secretary of State. I am delighted that the indications I have received are that they will accept the amendment to Schedule 11, which this House voted on just before the Recess; that is a significant and extremely welcome change.

When commentators outside talk about the work of a revising Chamber, I hope that this Bill will be used as a model for cross-party, non-partisan engagement in how we make a Bill as good as it possibly can be—particularly when it is as ground-breaking and novel as this one is. My noble friend the Minister said in a letter to all of us that this Bill had been strengthened in this Chamber, and I think that is absolutely right.

I also want to echo thanks to the Bill team, some of whom I was working with four years ago when we were talking about this Bill. They have stuck with the Bill through thick and thin. Also, I thank noble Lords across the House for their support for the amendments but also all of those outside this House who have committed such time, effort, support and expertise to making sure this Bill is as good as possible. I wish it well with its final stages. I think we all look forward to both Royal Assent and also the next big challenge, which is implementation.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction today and also for his letter which set out the reasons and the very welcome amendments that he has tabled today. First, I must congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, for her persistence in pushing amendments of this kind to Clause 45, which will considerably increase the transparency of the Secretary of State’s directions if they are to take place. They are extremely welcome as amendments to Clause 45.

Of course, there is always a “but”—by the way, I am delighted that the Minister took the advice of the House and clearly spent his summer reading through the Bill in great deal, or we would not have seen these amendments, I am sure—but I am just sorry that he did not take the opportunity also to address Clause 176 in terms of the threshold for powers to direct Ofcom in special circumstances, and of course the rather burdensome powers in relation to the Secretary of State’s guidance on Ofcom’s exercise of its functions under the Bill as a whole. No doubt we will see how that works out in practice and whether they are going to be used on a frequent basis.

My noble friend Lord Allan—and I must congratulate both him and the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for their addressing this very important issue—has set out five assurances that he is seeking from the Minister. I very much hope that the Minister can give those today, if possible.

Congratulations are also due to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for finding a real loophole in the offence, which has now been amended. We are all delighted to see that the point has been well taken.

Finally, on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, clearly it is up to the Minister to respond to the points made by the committee. All of us would have preferred to see a comprehensive scheme in the primary legislation, but we are where we are. We wanted to see action on apps; they have some circumscribing within the terms of the Bill. The terms of the Bill—as we have discussed—particularly with the taking out of “legal but harmful”, do not give a huge amount of leeway, so this is not perhaps as skeleton a provision as one might otherwise have thought. Those are my reflections on what the committee has said.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Report stage
Monday 10th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con)]

I rise briefly to speak to this group of amendments. I want to pick up where my noble friend Lord Bethell has just finished. The Government have listened hugely on this Bill and, by and large, the Bill, and the way in which Ministers have engaged, is a model of how the public wants to see their Parliament acting: collaboratively and collegiately, listening to each other and with a clear sense of purpose that almost all of us want to see the Bill on the statute book as soon as possible. So I urge my noble friend the Minister to do so again. I know that there have been many conversations and I think that many of us will be listening with great care to what he is about to say.

There are two other points that I wanted to mention. The first is that safety by design was always going to be a critical feature of the Bill. I have been reminding myself of the discussions that I had as Culture Secretary. Surely and in general, we want to prevent our young people in particular encountering harms before they get there, rather than always having to think about the moderation of harmful content once it has been posted.

Secondly, I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about why the Government find it so difficult to accept these amendments. Has there been some pushback from those who are going to be regulated? That would suggest that, while they can cope with the regulation of content, there is still secrecy surrounding the algorithms, functionalities and behaviours. I speak as the parent of a teenager who, if he could, would sit there quite happily looking at YouTube. In fact, he may well be doing that now—he certainly will not be watching his mother speaking in this House. He may well be sitting there and looking at YouTube and the content that is served up automatically, time after time.

I wonder whether this is, as other noble Lords have said, an opportunity. If we are to do the Bill properly and to regulate the platforms—and we have decided we need to do that—we should do the job properly and not limit ourselves to content. I shall listen very carefully to what my noble friend says but, with regret, if there is a Division, I will have to support the indomitable noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, as I think she was called.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I very strongly support the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, in her Amendments 35, 36 and 281F and in spirit very much support what the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said in respect of his amendments. We have heard some very powerful speeches from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, herself, from the noble Baronesses, Lady Harding and Lady Morgan, from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, from my noble friend Lady Benjamin and from the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Bethell. There is little that I can add to the colour and the passion that they brought to the debate today.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, started by saying that it is not just about content; it is about functionalities, features and behaviours. It is all about platform design. I think the Government had pretty fair warning throughout the progress of the Bill that we would be keen to probe this. If the Minister looks back to the Joint Committee report, he will see that there was a whole chapter titled “Societal harm and the role of platform design”. I do not think we could have been clearer about what we wanted from this legislation. One paragraph says:

“We heard throughout our inquiry that there are design features specific to online services that create and exacerbate risks of harm. Those risks are always present, regardless of the content involved, but only materialise when the content concerned is harmful”.


It goes on to give various examples and says:

“Tackling these design risks is more effective than just trying to take down individual pieces of content (though that is necessary in the worst cases). Online services should be identifying these design risks and putting in place systems and process to mitigate them before people are harmed”.


That is the kind of test that the committee put. It is still valid today. As the noble Baroness said, platforms are benefiting from the network effect, and the Threads platform is an absolutely clear example of how that is possible.

The noble Lord, Lord Russell, gave us a very chilling example of the way that infinite scrolling worked for Milly. A noble Lord on the Opposition Bench, a former Home Secretary whose name I momentarily forget, talked about the lack of empathy of AI in these circumstances. The algorithms can be quite relentless in pushing this content; they lack human qualities. It may sound over the top to say that, but that is exactly what we are trying to legislate for. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, says, just because we cannot always anticipate what the future holds, there is no reason why we should not try. We are trying to future-proof ourselves as far as possible, and it is not just the future but the present that we are trying to proof against through these amendments. We know that AI and the metaverse are coming down the track, but there are present harms that we are trying to legislate for as well. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, was absolutely right to keep reminding us about Molly Russell. It is this kind of algorithmic amplification that is so dangerous to our young people.

The Minister has a chance, still, to accede to these amendments. He has heard the opinion all around the House. It is rather difficult to understand what the Government’s motives are. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, put her finger on it: why is it so difficult to accede to these? We have congratulated the Government, the Minister and the Secretary of State throughout these groups over the last day and a bit; they have been extremely consensual and have worked very hard at trying to get agreement on a huge range of issues. Most noble Lords have never seen so many government amendments in their life. So far, so good; why ruin it?

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Report stage
Thursday 6th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con)]

Very briefly, before I speak to these amendments, I want to welcome them. Having spoken to and introduced some of the threats of sharing intimate images under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, I think it is really welcome that everything has been brought together in one place. Again, I pay tribute to the work of Dame Maria Miller and many others outside who have raised these as issues. I also want to pay tribute to the Ministry of Justice Minister Edward Argar, who has also worked with my noble friend the Minister on this.

I have one specific question. The Minister did mention this in his remarks, but could he be absolutely clear that these amendments do not mention specifically the lifetime anonymity of claimants and the special measures in relation to giving evidence that apply to witnesses. That came up in the last group of amendments as well. Because they are not actually in this drafting, it would be helpful if he could put on record the relationship with the provisions in the Sexual Offences Act 2003. I know that would be appreciated by campaigners.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I have very little to add to the wise words that we have heard from my noble friend and from the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Morgan. We should thank all those who have got us to this place, including the Law Commission. It was a separate report. In that context, I would be very interested to hear a little more from the Minister about the programme of further offences that he mentioned. The communication offences that we have talked about so far are either the intimate images offences, which there was a separate report on, or other communications offences, which are also being dealt with as part of the Bill. I am not clear what other offences are in the programme.

Finally, the Minister himself raised the question of deepfakes. I have rustled through the amendments to see exactly how they are caught. The question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, is more or less the same but put a different way. How are these deepfakes caught in the wording that is now being included in the Bill? This is becoming a big issue and we must be absolutely certain that it is captured.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 19th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I will speak to Amendments 9 and 14, but, as I did not speak at Second Reading and before I get to Amendment 9, it is important to set out some context.

I am pleased to see that both Houses are now focusing on business other than the current virus crisis. We have already been reminded today that our democracy is dependent on fast and reliable broadband, and we have seen the struggles that some of us have had with that. Therefore, fast and reliable broadband connectivity has become a national utility and something that people should expect as a right.

It is right that we pay tribute to all those who have kept that national utility going in the past few weeks, as we rely more and more on wi-fi, broadband and mobile connectivity. Although the people who have kept such critical national services going are perhaps not often referred to as key workers, I think that they should be included as such. They have connected loved-ones in hospitals, often at the worst possible time in anyone’s life, and provided online access to education—the subject of a wider debate. They have enabled online appointments for doctors working from home, which is a working pattern that is likely to continue, and family harmony—if anything is to be taken from the example of how much time my 12 year-old spends on his Xbox.

Therefore, the Prime Minister and the Government were right to make a clear commitment to gigabit connectivity nationwide by 2025, and it is important that Ministers stick with that target. I know from my time as Culture Secretary just how personally committed the Prime Minister is to this. Having that target of 2025 should concentrate minds both within government and outside in terms of those responsible for the rollout. I hope that there will be no let-up in making sure that the target is achieved.

Having better connectivity across the country is part of the Government’s levelling-up agenda. It will also be part of necessary infrastructure spend, which will be very important in getting our economy moving after at least the first wave of the current crisis has passed and we can see how much work needs to be done to get our economy restarted.

This Bill is an important part of removing all barriers to faster broadband rollout. As we have heard, it is about accessing premises where leaseholders want better broadband. In a similar vein, I know that the department is working on removing other barriers to deployment. Another important step will be making sure that all new-build developments have broadband connectivity points installed right from the start so that people do not have to move into new homes or new business premises only to find that they cannot get better connectivity.

This is a short and focused Bill. That is why I argue today that Amendments 9 and 14, although very important—as we have heard, noble Lords feel very strongly about the issues under discussion—are not right for this Bill. I know that the Secretary of State made a commitment in the other place to bring forward a telecoms security Bill, but obviously he was speaking before the events of the last few weeks. The commitment was to bring forward such a Bill before the Summer Recess, although I think we all appreciate that the legislative timetable has been somewhat disrupted. However, we can see from the debates so far on these amendments that there is a real appetite both in this House and in the other place to have these discussions.

I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, that the decision to allow high-risk vendors to play a limited role in our national connectivity was not an easy one, and it certainly was not rushed through. It stemmed from years of looking at this situation, particularly the telecoms supply chain review conducted by my predecessor in the culture department, but I do think it was the right decision. I will talk about the Statement that I made in the House in January—not in March, as I think she said.

We need faster, better and resilient broadband. That is why having a number of key suppliers at this time is important, so that the infrastructure can be relied upon. It is also right, as I said in the Statement to the House on 28 January, that diversification of the suppliers’ market is important. We must not, as a country, find ourselves in this position again when we have to make difficult decisions about high-risk vendors. I understand the noble Baroness’s amendment but, as I say, the Government’s approach and the decision made at the National Security Council are right, not easy. I therefore hope that we will return to this important subject at a future date on a future Bill. Putting a hard deadline of the end of 2022 on it, although again understandable, also risks the wrong decisions being made and potentially a less resilient broadband network being rolled out across the country. That really will help no one in the longer term.

A full technical and security analysis was undertaken by GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre. Its view and advice were central to the conclusions of the telecoms supply chain review and the decisions taken off the back of that. Just as a reminder, the UK Government’s approach is obviously to have a new telecoms security regime, which we will discuss in that future Bill, to diversify the supply chain. Although subject to the current crisis, of course, work should begin to start on that. It is very important that we work with our allies around the world on that supply chain to ensure that it is more diverse. However, we will put ourselves on the back foot if we ignore any key suppliers at the moment.

The third condition was the most important: we have to be clear about what makes a vendor high risk and have clear rules and guidance on how we mitigate the many cyber risks to our telecoms networks. We know that cyber risks come from a variety of sources. As I mentioned in that Statement, the most recent cybersecurity risks have come from Russia, and the Russians play no part in our telecoms infrastructure at all.

I said in the House back in January that

“high-risk vendors should be excluded from all safety-related and safety-critical networks in critical national infrastructure; excluded from security-critical network functions; limited to a minority presence in other network functions up to a cap of 35%; and be subjected to tight restrictions, including exclusions from sensitive geographic locations.”

I noted what the noble Baroness said about the answer that I gave to her back in January. I will certainly check the 2013 report again, but I also ask her to check the words that I used about the most sensitive networks. It is clear, as I also said in the Statement, that

“nothing in the review affects this country’s ability to share highly sensitive intelligence data over highly secure networks, both within the UK and with our partners, including the Five Eyes. GCHQ has categorically confirmed that how we construct our 5G and full-fibre public telecoms networks has nothing to do with how we share classified data. The UK’s technical security experts have agreed that the new controls on high-risk vendors are completely consistent with the UK’s security needs.”—[Official Report, 28/1/20; col. 1340.]

Given the current crisis, there will be time for a full-scale evaluation of the relationship between the UK and China. I should make it clear that companies such as Huawei could help their cause if they encouraged the Chinese Government to participate fully in any global inquiries, particularly into how the current coronavirus crisis was started.

We also need to be clear about the motivations of some who are objecting to the use of high-risk vendors and want to set dates. As we have heard in this debate but also in the other place, there are many different motivations. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, has just set out a very powerful case in relation to human rights, and I hope that will be part of a future debate. There are of course issues of security and intelligence sharing, but there are also those who use this particular concern and debate to advance other geopolitical strategies: namely, the successful conclusion of a UK-US trade agreement. The US has strong feelings about Huawei’s involvement, as we have seen in recent developments. We need to be very clear, and the Government were very clear in January, that we were making a decision about the involvement of high-risk vendors on the basis of what was right for the UK.

I hope that the House will not want to see this amendment in the Bill, but it is clear that we must return to this issue in the Bill. It is right that we hold the Government to account over the diversification strategy so that, as I say, that we are not in this position in any further future telecom supply chain decisions that we might have to make.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, we have heard some passionate speeches today, but, truth be told, this infrastructure Bill is about much more mundane matters. It is all about rights for operators getting access to install fibre broadband in order to achieve faster broadband rollout, not vendors or their equipment, or indeed high-risk vendors or their equipment, so we on these Benches do not believe that this is the appropriate time or place to discuss these amendments. Quite apart from that, the amendment deals with 5G infrastructure content and leads to our strong view that this debate is not appropriate now but will be when the telecom security Bill comes forward.

I do not say this very often, but I agree with the Government’s view on this, as expressed by the letter of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. That will be the right peg for the noble Baroness’s amendments, and we should debate the substance then. For that reason, I am not going to engage with the substance of many of the statements made by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, in moving these amendments or indeed those of the noble Lord, Lord Alton.

The background is that, despite earlier speculation, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, said, after some considerable consideration the Government made their Statement in January 2020 and said that Huawei would continue to play a limited role in delivering the 5G rollout. As she said, that decision took into account analysis and insight from several security bodies and experts in the UK, including GCHQ and the National Cyber Security Centre, and she explained the reasoning very clearly.

On these amendments specifically, there is of course a problem in the operators being given the right to install equipment from high-risk vendors now but ahead of a deadline set in future. Will that fibre have to be removed? What level of use by a telecoms operator and Huawei is sufficient—that its network supports connections from Huawei phones, or that it uses Huawei equipment in its 5G network but not in its fibre installation? What about a company that installs fibre under this legislation but then sells the infrastructure to another company? Why should operators be forced to develop plans to remove high-risk vendors on the advice of the NCSC when that advice is that the risk can be accepted up to a 35% network cap? Do companies now have to submit plans to reach 0% but without any expectation of that actually being implemented?

All this adds up to enormous uncertainty just at the point when we need the maximum rollout of fibre and 5G. That is why the Government are right in their approach—as I said, I do not say that very often—when they say that the issue of wayleads in the Bill should be kept separate from security considerations that will be covered by the telecoms security Bill.

For the information of the House, I do not underestimate the substantive arguments. I considered these matters very carefully myself some 10 years ago. I was a member of Huawei’s international advisory board, but I think that gives me a useful insight into these matters rather than any conflict in the current circumstances. I hope we can debate all these issues at a future date, but not in this Bill.