Undersea Cables

Lord Fox Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

There are many things on the seabed, not only electricity and fibre-optic cables but pipelines as well. The National Security Council looks at all these threats to our infrastructure, and we advise all the parts of the infrastructure estate regularly and keep an eye on all of it.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister was right in saying that there is resilience in the system, and he pointed out that the system is owned by a disparate group of business people. In the event that there is a successful attack on some elements of the transatlantic bandwidth, what plans are now being put in place to deliver that bandwidth to the most important traffic that has to happen? In other words, it is all very well having resilience, but if that resilience is not available for the most important transactions then it is no good. What plans are being put in place to ensure that that response would be available?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

That is a good point. It is not just transatlantic cables that are important here; the Policy Exchange report gives examples of other areas in the world where cables have broken. I am not going to say exactly what the mitigation measures are but that is what the national risk assessment is for, and the National Security Council looks at that.