Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Alun Cairns Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Carry-over motion & Carry-over motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 30th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

To clarify the position for the right hon. Gentleman, mobile network operators cannot purchase from December this year—so they can purchase it now— and the installation limit will then apply from September 2021. The point of these measures is to address the concerns that Members rightly raised that companies could be incentivised to purchase large amounts of stock, stockpile it and then roll it out right the way through to 2027. I told the House in July that I would set us on a clear and unambiguous path to 2027, and these measures do exactly that.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that, associated with the Bill, there needs to be a plan for the greatest diversity in the supply chains? That is the long-term solution, because part of the challenge is that we have ended up focusing on one supplier, Huawei, which has been dominant in this field. What action is he taking in that area?

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. The interventions are tempting me to jump around points that I intend to make, but he is right about the importance of diversification. We have published the diversification strategy, which is available for Members to examine, and I will come on to it in a moment.

It is this Bill and this Bill alone that gives Members the assurances they seek for the security of our networks both now and in the future. Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), operators are already taking our approach seriously—they are working now to meet the Government’s requirements. For example, BT has signed a deal with Ericsson for 5G equipment to enable it to phase out Huawei and is already in the process of using Ericsson products to replace Huawei in its core. Where operators can go further and faster without jeopardising the stability of our network, we will of course encourage them to do so, but it would be a big risk to force them to go even further. BT and others have warned that moving faster could put our networks under considerable strain, creating significant risk of blackouts, and it would take longer for 5G to reach the parts of the country where it would make the most difference.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak in support of this Bill and to have the opportunity to support many of the calls that colleagues have made.

Only just over a week ago, the Minister and I were in Westminster Hall debating an allied subject to this Bill when we discussed the challenges and opportunities that came from excluding Huawei from our 5G network. I do not want to repeat all the points that were made in that debate, but in the short time since then, the Government have taken significant, welcome steps—something the Minister hinted at—in developing policies associated with the Bill. Today’s publication of the 5G supply chain diversification strategy sees a welcome plan that contributes to the solution that Huawei brought about, as does the neutrORAN pilot that was announced earlier today.

As a backdrop, it is worth recalling that it was the lack of diversity in the supply chain of this specialised area of technology that created a tension between the desire to roll out 5G as quickly as possible and the potential exposure of our national security to high-risk vendors. Among a whole range of factors, we were being forced to weigh up, or were tempted by, the economic and social benefits that 5G could bring within a relatively short timescale against the risks of being exposed to largely one company with its umbilical cord attached to one nation and the potential security risks associated with that country—obviously, China.

The Government ultimately, and rightly, decided that the concern for the latter outweighed the former, and this Bill is the result. That is welcome, but simply passing the Bill will not necessarily reduce the risks if we continue to be exposed to a limited number of vendors. That is why the diversification strategy and the neutrORAN pilot are also important. It is worth highlighting that in any vital supply chain, diversity is key, but a few organisations in the commercial world allow supply chains to become too constrained. The commercial risks, let alone the security risks, are far too great.

It is worth recognising that the reach and influence of 5G will be far greater than any previous generation of communications. Its capacity to carry much larger volumes of data at very high speeds well beyond 400 Gbps capacity means that our connected lives will be taken to a whole new level. Some have mentioned the internet of things, connected vehicles, smart cities and even smart energy networks, and many more areas that we have not even thought of will become connected in an ever greater, independent way, highlighting the risks that we could have faced if this Bill had not been brought forward. However, all these innovations lead to an exponential growth in connectivity and pressures on spectrum that has its natural limits, which also need to be overcome. Smart cell technology is likely to be part of the solution, meaning that more apparatus than ever before will need to be adopted, along with a greater dependence on the fibre networks that will take it from the small cells. However, this also highlights the need for quantum encryption—something I will come to later, because it is not included in the strategy plan that the Minister published earlier today.

It is therefore obvious that alternative suppliers need to be developed, not only because of the risks we are considering but because of the unprecedented demand for equipment needed to deliver the connectivity that will be called for. There is significant value in this—in the research and development, in the intellectual property and in the manufacturing opportunities, all of which need to be exploited. A fundamental turning point for me was during the summer, when the Government announced their intention to adopt open standards such as open RAN. This signalled that the Government understand the challenges, and the need to encourage more investment and innovation in this space. This was a hugely welcome step, and will be pivotal to diversification in the marketplace. Furthermore, today’s neutrORAN pilot project shows that the Government are determined to be at the forefront of the technological advances.

I would add that we need to ensure these pilots are particularly open—very open—to UK businesses. In last week’s debate, I went into detail to highlight the many individual companies that show the UK has exceptional expertise in specific areas, such as radio frequency and satellite communications, base station capability, backhaul and cyber-resilience. I went through a whole list of organisations in last week’s Westminster Hall debate; I will not go through them again, but I will just highlight a few.

Many right hon. and hon. Members have referred to cyber risk, but south-east Wales and the western gateway have among the greatest cyber-resilience expertise anywhere, certainly in Europe: Thales, Airbus, and quantum technology at the University of Bristol, along with GCHQ. It also happens to coincide with the disproportionate strength that south-east Wales has in compound semiconductors, which I will come on to in a moment, and the satellite and radio frequency expertise that exists in north-east England, highlighting that this coincides with the levelling-up agenda that the Government also want to pursue. Today’s Bill will lead to new economic opportunities in different parts of the country.

Enabling the technology through all these elements is a great economic opportunity. 5G will only work with the compound semiconductor technology that I mentioned earlier—high-capacity chips that enable more data to be managed effectively. I said last week that if a silicon chip is a country lane, compound semi-conductors are great big highways: that is the volume of data that will be carried by the 5G network. The world’s largest cluster for compound semiconductor technology is in south-east Wales, part of the western gateway economic region. Companies such as IQE, SPTS Technologies, Newport Wafer Fab and others work with the Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult, as well as universities from Cardiff and Swansea to Cambridge and Bristol.

It is worth noting that the UK has great expertise in silicon chip design, but we do not manufacture such chips any longer. In contrast, we design and fabricate compound semi-conductor chips, so supporting and encouraging further investment in this sector can maintain manufacturing capacity as well. Their energy efficiency is also a key benefit, particularly with technology consuming 2% to 3% of global energy demand.

Finally, I mentioned quantum encryption earlier. So much more use will be made of fibre technology as part of the small cell element of the 5G roll-out. Quantum encryption is vital if we are going to maintain our defences against the cyber threat that so many colleagues have talked about.

It is a privilege to support this Bill. There are so many elements that must coincide and go along with it, and I am glad that the Minister is taking large leaps in the right direction.