Undersea Cables

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl for the question. This is an important area. As I have said, most of the breaks are not malign, but there is, of course, that risk. Regular reviews are undertaken as part of the national risk assessment. The MoD works with DSIT and others to look at what the risks are. We also work continuously with partners, including NATO. In 2023, there was a specific NATO action to look at critical undersea infrastructure co-ordination to make sure that a response and detection system was in place.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the joint maritime operations centre, together with the embedded national maritime intelligence centre, are able to monitor shipping throughout our EEZ and European waters, so we know where those ships are. We know which Russian ships in particular are involved in this sort of operation. We have now purchased the RFA “Proteus”, which we should be able to get to where these events are happening. When will we get the second ship? When will we be on top of one of these when it is doing something? I do not know about retaliation, but would we then be able to arrest a ship in our EEZ that was damaging one of our cables?

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for the question. It is quite a long way from my brief in DSIT. If I may, I shall try to get somebody to answer it for him.