UK Telecommunications Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBob Seely
Main Page: Bob Seely (Conservative - Isle of Wight)Department Debates - View all Bob Seely's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(4 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberThe right hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the wider risks to the network. As I have said repeatedly, both previously and today, we would be exceptionally naive to think that just by removing Huawei, we remove that risk. Sophisticated hostile state actors can of course infiltrate our networks. That is why we are toughening up considerably the security of our networks through the telecoms security Bill, and I think that is the correct approach.
I welcome much of what the Minister has said and am grateful to him for coming here. This does look like a long, slow goodbye to Huawei, but does he understand the concerns of some Members that seven years is a very long time in politics and it would be better were it to be done sooner? Also, does he understand that perhaps the lesson from all this is that for a host of reasons—economic, security, geopolitics —high-risk vendors should not be in our critical national infrastructure?
I thank my hon. Friend for his constructive comments. I genuinely understand the concerns about speed expressed by him and other Members. That point was considered extensively by the National Security Council, and in the end we made a balanced judgment. We believe that by having 2027 as the target, by the end of this Parliament we will have put in law an irreversible process for removal. The risk of going faster relates to the integrity of the network and the challenges in that respect. I would rather we got to a point where we had got it out completely by 2027, and I think that is a realistic timetable for doing so.