Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Oliver Dowden and Pat McFadden

Thursday 25th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr McFadden]

Thank you for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall ask a policy question.

The Government recently awarded a contract for a supercomputer to Lenovo, a China-headquartered firm that has been the subject of enforcement action by the United States on security grounds. This supercomputer will be used by critical Government bodies such as the UK Atomic Energy Authority. How will Ministers safeguard the public against any possible misuse of sensitive Government data as a result of the awarding of the contract?

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I know that he has also written to me regarding that topic. I can assure him that we will be working with the National Cyber Security Centre and the National Security Secretariat to ensure that full checks and measures are put in place to prevent such abuse from occurring.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to his role as general election co-ordinator for the Labour party. I understand that he sits on the quad, which determines Labour policy, so perhaps he could clear up, for the benefit of us all, this question on an issue of national security. Does the Labour party support our £75 billion increase in defence spending? If he cares about these things, the answer should be plainly, “Yes, we do”.

[Mr McFadden]

When we announce a policy, we ensure that it is properly costed and funded, which I recommend to the Deputy Prime Minister. One other cyber-threat that modern states are facing is prepositioning: the planting of destructive software in critical infrastructure that can then be activated at a later date. The director of the FBI said that prepositioning of the Volt Typhoon type discovered in American infrastructure was

“the defining threat of our generation”.

America’s cyber-defence agency said that Five Eyes allies were also likely to have been targeted. Have the Government looked for or found Volt-Typhoon-type infiltration of any parts of our critical national IT infrastructure, and if so what action is being taken to remove it?

[Oliver Dowden]

The right hon. Gentleman has been around this place long enough to know that he is delivering a non-answer on Labour’s support for defence spending. The whole House will have noted that, although he raises an important issue in respect of prepositioning. He will appreciate that there are limits to what I can say from the Dispatch Box given that some of this relates to high-side intelligence, but I assure him that we are working with our Five Eyes allies, in particular the United States, since the US and the UK have exceptional capability in these areas, to ensure that we both have adequate knowledge and understanding of such prepositioning, and take effective steps in respect of it.

Cyber-security and UK Democracy

Debate between Oliver Dowden and Pat McFadden

Monday 25th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his statement, and for advance sight of it. It is a statement about which there has been significant briefing in the press over the past couple of days. On questions of national security, Labour will support the Government in efforts to counter attempts by China, or any other state, to interfere with or undermine the democratic process, or attempts to stop elected representatives going about their business, voicing their opinions, or casting their votes without fear or favour. With that in mind, I pay tribute to the efforts made every day by the intelligence and security services to protect the public, and to protect our democracy and way of life. The economic relationship between the United Kingdom and China can never mean compromising on national security or our democratic integrity.

The Deputy Prime Minister’s statement touches on a number of issues, and I have some questions about them. Will he say more about the Government’s assessment of Chinese motives? Does he believe, for example, that Beijing wants to disrupt our democratic process, or instead to gather data about our citizens for some other reason? On the specific issue of the Electoral Commission and the electoral register, why does he think that the Chinese Government hacked what is a publicly available database? Does he believe they were after the details of those who may not be on a public register for good reasons, for example because they might be employed in security-sensitive areas? Does he believe they were after details and the personal data of political donors, or was there some other motive?

The Deputy Prime Minister referred to the democratic electoral process, and with an election coming it is vital that people have confidence in their ability to register and to vote. Will he confirm that our electronic register to vote system is sufficiently well protected? He said that the attacks on parliamentary accounts were unsuccessful. Does he believe that China now wants to engage in the kind of hack and leak activity that we have in recent years associated with Russia, in order to compromise either individual politicians or the wider democratic process? On sanctions, only last week the Minister of State was reluctant to respond to the claim that the Foreign Office “indefinitely paused” targeted sanctions against Chinese officials late last year. Will the Deputy Prime Minister explain what has changed in the past week?

We are grateful for the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, and the report it issued on China last year, which covered much of the same ground that the Deputy Prime Minister covered in his statement. When discussing individual politicians, paragraph 98 of that report stated:

“Targets are not necessarily limited to serving politicians either. They can include former political figures, if they are sufficiently high profile. For example, it is possible that David Cameron’s role as Vice President of a £1bn China–UK investment fund…was in some part engineered by the Chinese state to lend credibility to Chinese investment,”.

What have the Government done to look into that allegation from the Intelligence and Security Committee? How can Ministers ensure that those leaving politics are not targeted in that way?

In that spirit, Mr Speaker, I have read reports that the Conservative Back-Bench 1922 committee is to be briefed on these matters later today. Given the importance of national and democratic security to all the parties in this House, is the Deputy Prime Minister intending to arrange a briefing for the Leader of the Opposition, the Intelligence and Security Committee and, indeed, the other political parties represented in the House?

Experts in this field have warned of China’s voracious appetite for data, and its potential uses as computing power improves—for example, as quantum computing develops. The UK’s record on data security is patchy, to put it mildly. What are the Government doing to protect complex and valuable datasets from being stolen now, possibly in order to be manipulated later by more powerful computers that are controlled by authoritarian adversaries?

Finally, Mr Speaker, on the broader issue, does the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister chose to make this statement today signal a fundamental reassessment of the overall threat? He referred to the United States and our allies. On 12 February, the US Administration warned Congress that the cyber-threat from China was changing. Previously, a threat that largely involved spying and influencing now looked like it was getting ready to disrupt critical American infrastructure—aviation, energy, healthcare and other sectors. Is it now the UK Government’s view that we should change our assessment of the threat in a similar way? If so, this is of the utmost importance, and we would need to know what corresponding improvements the Government would make to the preparedness of our critical infrastructure, because if the threat really has changed then so too should our response.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. I shall seek to address as many of them as I can.

When it comes to Chinese motivations, ultimately, it is a matter for the Chinese to be able justify their motivations, but the points that the right hon. Gentleman made were apposite. First, the Chinese look at successful democratic countries, such as the United Kingdom, Japan or the Republic of Korea where I was last week, and they want to seek to undermine them. It is no surprise therefore that they should seek to interfere in electoral processes, in the way that we have seen conduct from Russia that aligns with that. Indeed, the successful democratic elections around the world right now stand in contrast to the sham elections that we saw in Russia last weekend.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the public record of the Electoral Commission, I think that that is the essence of what has happened here. These attacks and these attempts were ultimately pretty unsuccessful. I reassure the right hon. Gentleman and Members of this House that there was no infiltration of the closed register of the Electoral Commission, so the concerns that he raised have not arisen. On the further strengthening of the electoral register, that is precisely the work that the National Cyber Security Centre does in co-ordination with GCHQ, working with Government agencies, including the Electoral Commission.

The right hon. Gentleman was right to raise the risk of hack and leak. It is certainly something that we saw in previous elections, and I remain concerned. I also remain very concerned about artificial intelligence, deep fakes in particular, being used to disrupt elections, hence the work that I undertook at the conference last week and the progress that we are making with the accord on artificial intelligence use by malign states.

In relation to targeted sanctions, it is not the case that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office paused targeted sanctions. On the conduct of the former Foreign Secretary—[Interruption.] I am not sacking the Foreign Secretary from the Dispatch Box. On the conduct of the current Foreign Secretary, who sits in the other place, all appointments to Government are subject to the usual propriety and ethic processes. Lord Cameron is addressing the 1922 Committee in his capacity as Foreign Secretary in the usual way, addressing a wide range of issues. It is not a specific briefing on this issue, but if leaders of the principal Opposition parties wish to have a further briefing on this issue I am of course very happy to facilitate that, in the way that they know I have done in relation to other national security issues.

We are highly alert to the risks of hostile states hoovering up currently quantum-encrypted information that could subsequently be decoded with advances in quantum computing. We do extensive work with the National Cyber Security Centre and the Ministerial Cyber Board on critical national infrastructure to ensure that we guard ourselves against exactly that risk. On our relationship with China more broadly, Members of this House should take this moment very seriously. It is a grave moment, against a backdrop of an escalating threat from China, and we will take proportionate action in response to that escalating threat.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Oliver Dowden and Pat McFadden

Thursday 29th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr McFadden]

Baroness Mone and her husband made a £60 million profit on a £200 million contract for personal protective equipment, much of which the NHS deemed unusable. The couple, reportedly, have had £75 million of assets frozen, but they also have a horse running in Britain’s favourite horserace, the grand national. That is not racing’s fault, but would it not be a grand national disgrace if the owners were able to walk away with winnings while taxpayers are still waiting to get their money back from being sold a mountain of unusable PPE?

[Oliver Dowden]

The Government continue to take robust action to recover any misused funds. As the right hon. Gentleman will be aware, both criminal and civil proceedings are ongoing, so there are limited things I can say in respect of the allegations that he has made. As the Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office and Deputy Prime Minister, my remit runs to many areas, but unfortunately not to the outcome of the grand national.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Oliver Dowden and Pat McFadden

Thursday 18th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I echo the condolences that have been given to the family of Tony Lloyd.

Further to the question about flooding, yesterday the Public Accounts Committee said that over 200,000 properties in England were vulnerable to flooding, and the budget for flood protection is now expected to cover 40% fewer properties than the Government originally said it would. We have seen the devastation that flooding can do in recent weeks and the terrible consequences for those affected. Given the Cabinet Office’s responsibility for resilience, can the Secretary of State explain why the plan is so far behind schedule and what the Government will do to protect the 200,000 properties that may now be left without adequate flood protection?

[Oliver Dowden]

As the right hon. Gentleman highlights, the Cabinet Office has responsibility for resilience under a lead Government Department model, but the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is responsible for individual flood defences. We have put record sums into flood defences and we have provided record flood defence building. Clearly, there is more to do to allocate those resources, but we have made considerable progress.

[Mr McFadden]

This week, Gareth Davies, the head of the National Audit Office, said that Ministers could save up to £20 billion a year of taxpayers’ money by modernising IT systems, tackling fraud and better management of major projects such as HS2. He also said that out-of-date IT exposes the UK to a greater risk of cyber-attacks, and we have heard reference this morning to the cyber-attack on the British Library. Why is it that time after time, the Government reach for tax rises—such rises will leave a typical family paying £1,200 a year more in tax—instead of saving money by getting a grip of these IT projects and major infrastructure projects, as has been called for by the National Audit Office?

[Oliver Dowden]

That is precisely why we have created i.AI—the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence—under my leadership to make sure that we apply artificial intelligence to drive down the cost of public services and to improve outputs. I say gently to the right hon. Gentleman that it is a bit rich to be taking lectures from the Labour party, which wasted over £26 billion when it was in government on failed IT projects—failed IT projects in the NHS, the Ministry of Defence and DEFRA. And where was the right hon. Gentleman? He was sat in Downing Street while that happened.

Risk and Resilience: Annual Statement

Debate between Oliver Dowden and Pat McFadden

Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. He is right that resilience is a critical function for the Government, local government, public services, business and society in an ever more volatile world. I congratulate him on surviving the year between the publication of the national resilience framework and the delivery of this statement. That is a rare achievement in a Government in which the principle is that everybody gets to be famous for 15 minutes. I congratulate him on his longevity.

I also welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement of the UK resilience academy and the volunteering hub. He is right that, given the chance, the British public will step up to help their fellow citizens. We should have a broad concept of resilience, be it physical, cyber, financial, in supply chains, in the public realm, in our values or in our democracy, so let me ask the Secretary of State about some of that.

The need for greater resilience has been underlined by the recent history of our country. Covid exposed huge flaws in advance planning, which ended up costing the taxpayer billions of pounds, some of which was wasted on dodgy contracts, some lost to downright fraud. Never again should the country be put at the mercy of inside tracks, VIP lanes and special access for those who happen to know ministerial phone numbers. What lessons have the Government learned from the huge degree of waste and fraud in covid contracts, and why has so little taxpayers’ money been recovered compared with the vast amount that was lost in the first place?

The invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent energy crisis exposed the short-sightedness of getting rid of gas storage, ditching home insultation programmes and being exposed to hugely volatile energy spot markets. Why is the Government’s new policy to roll back on the transition mandated by their own net zero legislation and prolong our reliance on international fossil fuel markets? For those failures, the British public have paid a heavy price.

How will the Government increase resilience in the public estate? Schools’ capital budgets were cut back on the Prime Minister’s watch when he was Chancellor. School roofs are falling in, disrupting children’s education. When will the Government be able to ensure that children do not have to be taught in classrooms in which the ceilings are held up by temporary supports? That should not be too much to ask.

Of course, not all risks are physical, and we have both opportunities and challenges in the development of artificial intelligence. We have seen cyber-attacks in recent years, such as the WannaCry attack on the NHS and the ongoing attack on the British Library. I appreciate that that is a major challenge; the old distinctions between state and non-state actors are blurring. What more can the Government do to protect critical systems from cyber-attacks?

That brings me to perhaps our most important asset: our democracy itself. With an election coming some time in the next year, I am sure that the Secretary of State would agree that we need to do all we can to ensure that it is conducted in a free and fair manner. With that in mind, why have the Government been so slow to implement the recommendations of the Intelligence and Security Committee in its report on Russia, which was published a couple of years ago? The Committee called Russian influence in the UK “the new normal”, citing connections at the highest level with

“access to UK companies and political figures,”

and said that Russia carries out

“malicious cyber activity in order to assert itself aggressively,”

for example by interfering in other countries’ elections. In the face of those findings, how will the Government ensure that our forthcoming election is protected against interference, either from Russia or by any other actors?

Finally, may I ask the Secretary of State about the governance of the strategy? The perennial question for a cross-departmental strategy such as this one is whether it is driven by the Departments or by the centre. Given the traditional strength of Departments in the Whitehall system, how can he ensure that the centre over which he presides is strong enough to enforce preparedness and deliver the national resilience that Members on both sides of the House want to see?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his words about my longevity—I very much intend for that to continue, and I will take his comments in the spirit in which I am sure he meant them. He asked about a range of issues and I will seek to address as many as I can, but I will be happy to follow up if I miss any.

First, the right hon. Gentleman talked about the range of risks that we face as a nation. He is absolutely right that one of the principal tasks of the Government and, indeed, my Department is to be across all of those risks, which we have done for many years through things such as the national security risk register. However, what we have done differently since covid is to be much more public about those risks through the national risk register, which sets out the range of risks that the nation faces, their likelihood and their impact. We have put an unprecedented amount of information into the public domain to help people prepare, whether as individuals or in businesses, local government or voluntary organisations.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about covid preparedness. That is precisely why we have introduced the biological security strategy, a £1.5 billion annual investment to prepare ourselves for the whole range of biological hazards we might face. The 100-day challenge is part of that strategy. If we have another pandemic, whatever form it takes, the crucial thing will be getting rapidly from the point at which the disease is sequenced to an effective vaccine. We are boosting our capabilities to enable us to do that within 100 days, because we saw during covid that that was the key to setting people free.

Turning to covid contracts, I gently point out to the right hon. Gentleman and the Opposition that at the time of covid, Opposition Members were constantly calling for us to go faster and look at a wider range of suppliers; I think at one point we were urged to seek the services of costumiers and football clubs. Since then, we have recovered huge amounts of money by establishing the Public Sector Fraud Authority, which has recovered double its target in the first year.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned energy resilience. This Government have invested in renewables. We have not only the world’s largest offshore wind farm, but the second, third, fourth and now the fifth largest, with many more in the pipeline. I am in constant contact with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, and we continue to work to ensure the resilience of our energy networks this winter.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise the risks around cyber. As I have said to the House previously, it is undoubtedly the case that the risk landscape around cyber continues to increase, not just in this nation but around the world, year in and year out. That is driven by a range of factors, not least, as he highlighted, the grey zone between hostile state actors and cyber-criminals. Against that backdrop, we continue to increase our resilience, including through the creation of the ministerial cyber board and the National Security Council’s resilience committee, which I chair.

The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned democracy and how we will prepare ourselves for forthcoming elections. Elections will happen not just in this nation but in many others next year—indeed, in this nation, it could be the year after. That is why we have instructed the defending democracy taskforce to make sure we are fully resilient.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman talked about governance. For many years, including when he was a Minister, we have been governed by the lead Government Department model, in which each Department takes responsibility for the risks set out in the national risk register. However, this Government have created for the first time a specific committee of the National Security Council—the resilience committee, which I chair—whose task is to hold those Departments to account. That is precisely what we are doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Oliver Dowden and Pat McFadden

Thursday 7th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I have already met with Lord Janvrin, who will be leading the committee. He of course has two decades of experience in service to the royal household, including as private secretary to Her late Majesty. The aim we are working towards is that the committee will report by 2026, which would have been Her late Majesty’s 100th birthday.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I begin by associating myself with the Secretary of State’s comments on marking the anniversary of the death of the late Queen.

The responsibilities of the Cabinet Office include the National Security Council and co-ordinating the Government’s response to crises. Last night, we learned of a major breach of security with the escape from Wandsworth prison of Daniel Abed Khalife, a terror suspect who was accused of gathering information that could be useful to a hostile state. Can the Secretary of State update the House on the search for Mr Khalife, and whether—in the light of his Department’s responsibilities for national security and resilience—he has asked why such a terror suspect was being held at a lower security category prison such as Wandsworth in the first place?

[Oliver Dowden]

May I begin by welcoming the right hon. Gentleman to his new position? It is wonderful that the great tradition of gingers across the Dispatch Boxes continues—although, if he does not mind, one should perhaps describe him as a legacy ginger. He brings a wealth of experience to the role, and I look forward to our exchanges.

The right hon. Gentleman is of course right to raise this case. As he will know, the Lord Chancellor has asked for an urgent investigation, working with the Prison Service to find out the exact circumstances of what happened in respect of this escape. Clearly, the initial law enforcement response will be led by the Home Office, but I will be working with the Lord Chancellor, the Home Secretary and others to ensure that we rapidly apprehend this individual and learn the lessons of what led to this escape in the first place.

[Mr McFadden]

I thank the Secretary of State. I can only say to him that the hair may go but the skin remains the same, so in solidarity I wish him well in the current heat.

It is reported that Mr Khalife managed to escape by clinging to the underside of a food delivery van. This is obviously an extraordinary situation, given the strict procedures that are supposed to govern the entry and exit of vehicles on the prison estate, so can the Secretary of State outline how those procedures will now be reviewed; what other aspects of prison security will also be reviewed, and over what timescale; and when the public and Parliament will be informed of any changes made as a result of this very serious breach of security?

[Oliver Dowden]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct to raise all of these questions, and that is precisely what my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor is overseeing with an examination into that right now. If the individual escaped in those circumstances, that clearly should not have happened. I know that my right hon. and learned Friend takes it very seriously indeed, and will of course update the House on the outcome of the investigation. Of course, the Home Secretary will update the House, alongside the Lord Chancellor, on steps to apprehend the individual.