Global Britain

Debate between Richard Graham and Tobias Ellwood

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Lady is right. There is an uneven playing field that needs to be addressed. Why is it that Facebook, Amazon and eBay cannot operate in China, but Alibaba, Huawei and others can operate here?

The scale of China is simply enormous. Alibaba is the size of eBay and Amazon put together. Huawei sells more mobile phones than Apple. The scale of it and the injection of cash from the Chinese Government is colossal, which is why we need to have a serious conversation. Given the importance that America, Australia and New Zealand place on this, we need a solution. I know that Huawei’s involvement is in the non-core elements of the 5G network and has been capped. But we made the F-35 stealth fighter—that was essentially the Five Eyes community coming together to make state-of-the-art equipment. Let us do the same with 5G. We should not just turn to Cisco, Ericsson or Nokia and say, “Please catch up with Huawei.” They will not be able to do it. We need the Prime Minister to talk with President Trump and say, “Over the next five years, let’s create the 5G and 6G capability that will allow us to have our own identity.”

If we do not, I predict that there will be a splintering of the internet. The rules that China is adopting and enforcing for its own people and for countries that use its technologies mean that there will be two operations and two versions of the economy. We cannot be caught on the wrong side of the argument in history, so we must develop our own western capabilities.

[Richard Graham]

My right hon. Friend has made a number of great points about technology and how we and our Five Eyes partners need to develop a serious alternative. Does he also agree that there is a danger in the House sometimes of criticising almost everything that China does? To give one small example, when the Chinese automotive company Geely bought the London Taxi Company, it converted the engines to electric and is now exporting them to France and the Netherlands from the UK. It is a good example of what Chinese investment can achieve that is positive for the UK.

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend is right, and I pay tribute to him for his knowledge, expertise and desire to educate the rest of us on the importance of what China is doing. There is a lot of duality in what China provides. It is providing some of the greenest capabilities in the world, but it is investing more in coal—it is building hundreds more coal-fired power stations at the very time when we need to wean ourselves off coal.

Militarily, I am also concerned. China’s space budget alone is £7 billion a year. Twenty years ago, its military budget was the same as ours. Today, it is five times that amount. Its navy grows the size of our Navy every single year. Those are my concerns in the longer term, and that is why we need an adult conversation with China, to work out what international rules we should be following.

Finally, I turn to the review that we will conduct. This is a pivotal moment for the UK to recognise and take stock of the threats that we face. We need a sober assessment of how the world is changing and an honest review of our own capabilities. Our battle tank is 20 years old; it needs an upgrade. Our aircraft carriers are fantastic, but no further investment in the Navy means that the rest of the surface fleet has been depleted. In the Gulf war, we had 36 fast-jet squadrons; today we have six. We need confirmation of our capabilities and our aspirations. What role do we seek to play on the international stage? We then need to commit to what is needed to get there, which will require an increase in our defence budget. We need to upgrade if we want to play that role.