Emergency Services Network

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Well, I think I was quite frank initially in saying that it had been a challenging project. It is a project that I have paid particular attention to in trying to get it moving, in terms of emergency services testing it and taking it up. In terms of the Scottish view on it, we engage with all devolved Administrations on this sort of thing, and we want to get it up and running as soon as we possibly can.

[Lord Lucas (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it looks as if this system is going to come on stream just at a time when the rest of us are moving on from 4G to 5G. Would it not be a good idea to start working now on the 5G replacement and use this as an exemplar of Dominic Cummings’s new way of government contracting and delivery?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I will keep away from politics and say that, to meet DCMS’s original requirement relating to 5G RAN only, EE had already anticipated that a proportion of Huawei 4G RAN equipment would need to be replaced with equipment supplied by other vendors, and this would be increased to meet the new requirement for 5G.