UK Telecoms: Huawei Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Barry Sheerman
Main Page: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)Department Debates - View all Barry Sheerman's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
UK Telecoms: Huawei
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Jeremy Wright
I agree with my hon. Friend, as she would expect, and she speaks with experience on this matter. We cannot exclude the possibility of a criminal investigation, and everybody will want to take that suggestion seriously. We are all entitled to say what many of us have already said about the undesirability of this kind of leak, and it is perfectly proper for the House to express its concern in such a way.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State is being very open and reasonable, but does he agree that fundamentally this is all about trust? When I was a very young MP, one of my first parliamentary jobs was to go to Hong Kong as part of a parliamentary delegation, to assess the agreement that this country reached with China on the future of Hong Kong. This very week we have seen how China has shredded that agreement by taking those democracy protesters and giving them long prison sentences. The Secretary of State says that we want a broad-ranging inquiry, but Syngenta in my constituency has been taken over by ChemChina. That is not on the stock exchange; that is the Chinese Government buying into our economy. We must look at that seriously as it is a question of trust.
Jeremy Wright
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concerns, and as I have said, the approach that we take to Huawei is different in nature to the approach we already take to other suppliers of similar equipment. He will recognise that the problem is not specific to the United Kingdom, and neither is it easy to resolve by simply saying, “We’ll have nothing to do with the Chinese”. As I have set out, a considerable amount of Chinese equipment is already in the system both here and elsewhere, and a considerable amount of Chinese components are in the supplies that we get from anywhere. This is not straightforward, hence the need for the type of review that we have engaged in, to discuss the issue sensibly and reach considered conclusions. The hon. Gentleman knows me well enough to know that that is my preferred approach, and that is what I intend to do.