Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

We have all heard the Government say that they can mitigate the risks of Huawei being involved in the roll-out of 5G, but my response to those security briefings was that the Government do not have to persuade me; they have to persuade our Five Eyes partners. If the Government cannot persuade the Americans, Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians that they can mitigate the risk, it does not matter whether they can mitigate it or not, as we will lose access to that security information, and that is a price we cannot pay.

[Dr Fox]

Although I accept my hon. Friend’s point, I think the Government’s first duty is to persuade the House of Commons that we are not taking a risk with our national security.

I want to come briefly to the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) about reputation. It is beyond doubt that countries around the world will be looking to the United Kingdom to see what decision we make. If we send out the signal that we, a country that is so highly regarded in terms of our national security infrastructure, think it is all right to involve Huawei in our 5G, others will follow. In fact, it is worse than that; we are already being cited as an example by other countries who intend to make that decision. Today, we have an opportunity to pause and say that the United Kingdom cannot be cited as a precedent, because we have not yet taken that decision—and hopefully we never will.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Bridgen]

My hon. Friend has obviously done a great deal of research on this subject. Does the fact that Huawei is offering very generous interest-free credit terms for its equipment set alarm bells ringing? In some cases, it is offering up to 30 years’ interest-free credit for its kit.

[Bob Seely]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Huawei seems to have two business models. It either undercuts by 30% to 40%, or it simply supplies 115% of the credit needed to buy an entire system. Either way, it undercuts and drives others out of business. I look forward to addressing that point in a moment.

The true voice of GCHQ, without the spin, is found in the Huawei oversight reports, which have become increasingly disturbing. I repeat: we hear the true voice of GCHQ not in the words of Ministers, but in those of the Huawei oversight board. For any colleagues who wish to access the details, if they join our WhatsApp group, which has well over 40 members, I will happily pass them on.

The board found that it could

“only provide limited assurance that all risks to UK national security from Huawei’s involvement in the UK’s critical networks can be sufficiently mitigated”

over time. In other words, the board is saying, “We can no longer give assurance.” This is the board speaking—it is not political spin. It added that, “as reported in 2018”, its work

“has continued to identify concerning issues in Huawei’s approach to software development…No material progress has been made on the issues raised in the previous 2018 report”.

It also stated:

“The Oversight Board advises that it will be difficult to appropriately risk-manage future products in the context of UK deployments, until the underlying defects in Huawei’s software engineering and”—

critically—

“cyber security processes are remediated

At present, the Oversight Board has not yet seen anything to give it confidence in Huawei’s capacity to successfully complete the elements of its transformation programme”.

If I received that as a bill of health, I would be extremely worried. That is the true voice of GCHQ.