Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Debate between Bob Stewart and Julia Lopez

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

With the leave of the House, I close this debate by thanking hon. Members for their contributions to the debate and for making a number of extremely important points about national security. I am keen to address those not only now, in this legislation, but in the future, through horizon scanning for some of the challenges that are coming up.

I appreciate that some of the trust in the system has been undermined by the Huawei situation, and I am sympathetic to concerns raised about reporting, diversification and resilience. My hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) is absolutely right that this legislation is just one part of a wider security framework. The development of 5G and full-fibre networks brings new security challenges, which we must be prepared for.

This legislation sets up a strong regime for handling and removing high-risk vendors from our public networks, but it is just the start. Specific security measures will be set out in secondary legislation; there will be a lot of work to do in the next stage as we draw up that legislation, and we will be publishing a code of practice explaining the technical guidance that providers can follow to comply with legal duties.

The final secondary legislation and code will be agreed through public consultation, which I hope will provide another opportunity for hon. Members who have concerns in this area to provide adequate scrutiny. I am alive to some of those concerns, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) has outlined, MPs and Peers have had multiple chances to scrutinise and feed back on our diversification strategy, and we will continue to report on developments.

[Bob Stewart]

I remind the Minister that the members of the ISC present tonight have written to the national security adviser on the revision of the memorandum of understanding from the Prime Minister to the ISC. We really do expect some changes to that, so that we can close the gap on supervision of things that other Select Committees cannot look at.

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that point. This issue has been raised throughout the passage of the Bill; I am alive to those concerns from the ISC, which bring particular expertise and scrutiny on matters on which others cannot, by virtue of their security importance. I understand that the ISC’s Chair has written to the Cabinet Office on the matters raised, but I wish to engage with the Committee on its important work. I believe I may—

Emergency Covid Contracts

Debate between Bob Stewart and Julia Lopez

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

There was a proper demonstration of the will of the Scottish people when they had their referendum on Scottish independence and made their views clear. Interestingly, Scottish National party Members never seem to accept that.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that this was not a PPE contract; it was a contract about communications and the important role they played in managing the pandemic at a time when we did not have the vaccine, the testing capacity that we wanted or other measures that we needed to tackle the pandemic. Communications, in this context, were extremely important in making sure the public understood the behaviours they needed adopt to keep themselves safe.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Ministers are not actually in charge of checking contracts—the civil service is. Does my hon. Friend agree that any contract, whether urgent or not, always requires due diligence by the civil service, even after the decision, and that that happens within every Department? I find accusations of cronyism to be normally very wrong indeed—does she agree?

Security of Ministers’ Offices and Communications

Debate between Bob Stewart and Julia Lopez

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my right hon. Friend for those very important questions to which we all want answers. I hope that they will be answered as part of this investigation.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Does the Department of Health and Social Care handle its own ministerial office security, or is that done across Whitehall by other organisations such as the police?