Domestic Infrastructure: Chinese Ownership

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Livingston of Parkhead

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Of course we should work closely with our allies, but it is just worth pointing out that some of our allies have a different legal framework. Australia, for example, has a law saying that telecom operators cannot procure equipment from a company that has extraterritorial jurisdiction. That rules out Chinese companies and many others. We do not have quite that same approach, but, of course, we learn from experience, from Australia, New Zealand, the United States and our other allies.

[Lord Livingston of Parkhead (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the UK has had a much more sophisticated approach to Chinese companies for many years, both in setting up the cyber centre that looks at Huawei source code to understand it, and in recognising that in certain parts of UK networks, such as BT’s core network, it was not appropriate to put it in? It also recognises that much equipment from other countries actually has Chinese components in it, so the position is actually far more sophisticated and nuanced than perhaps were some of the headline statements made in many other countries.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My noble friend is absolutely right.