Huawei and 5G

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Ian Paisley

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) on securing this incredibly important debate. We are on opposite sides of the House, but we share a deep commitment to British security and technological capability, which is clearly also shared by the many hon. Members present.

The UK has a proud technological history, from the earliest days of the industrial revolution to the invention of the first fibre-optic cable and, of course, the world wide web. Why, then, at the outset of the fourth industrial revolution, are we in a Huawei hole of our own making? As an enabling technology, 5G represents much more than faster mobile internet speeds. As the web enables applications that its inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee could never have dreamed of, 5G provides the platform for the technologies that will define the 21st century.

As I may have mentioned before, I am a chartered electrical engineer and a tech evangelist. I want the United Kingdom to harness all the benefits that 5G networks can bring, but if the foundations are poorly laid, or not laid at all, the potential for national harm is significant. After I graduated from Imperial College London, my first job was for a world leader in the then-emerging telecommunications sector. I spent eight years with Nortel designing networking equipment all over the world and working with many of the other equipment vendors at the time, such as Alcatel, Siemens, Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola. If someone had said to me that, a couple of decades later, we would be incapable of building a European telecoms network without a Chinese supplier, I would have been dumbfounded.

As we have heard, Huawei is bound by China’s national intelligence law to support, co-operate and collaborate with national intelligence work. That raises many concerns for the security of our 5G network. I will not repeat those raised by many hon. Members, including the hon. Members for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) and for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). The fact that Huawei is designated by our National Cyber Security Centre as high risk says it all. It is high risk, so why are we taking a risk with our national security? My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) highlighted the human rights and employment rights abuses with which Huawei is linked.

I have 10 questions for the Minister. How has the industry got itself into a position where our critical national infrastructure is so dependent on one high-risk vendor? The UK telecoms supply chain review, as summarised by the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) and the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), was seven months ago. The then Government committed to reduce our reliance on high-risk vendors over the next five to 10 years. Can the Minister say how that is happening? We have heard nothing since. The Government also said then that they would legislate at the earliest available opportunity. Again, we have heard nothing since.

With network design, cyber-security specialists will always advise people to assume breach, but the Government’s approach seems to have designed into it breach by a foreign power at a time of unprecedented geopolitical tension. I have many more questions as there is much that we do not know. What percentage of the UK’s currently deployed full fibre and mobile networks involves a designated high-risk vendor? From what proportion of our networks are they to be excluded under the terms of the NCSC advice?

If I understand the Government’s position, 5G and full fibre are critical national infrastructure, but only parts of them need to be secure. That is a difficult but, as the hon. Member for Rushcliffe suggested, tenable technological position, but we need to see the measures that will mitigate the risks and manage them out of our network.

On the international ramifications of the Government’s decision, as we have heard, the UK is the only member of the global intelligence-sharing network Five Eyes to have chosen to accept Huawei, with the exception of Canada, which is yet to make a decision but is being advised to block it. All the other members, the US, Australia and New Zealand, have blocked Huawei’s involvement, citing security concerns. Can the Minister tell us why our allies are taking such a different approach? Does he have a proper and detailed understanding of the impact on our international relationships, as the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) highlighted?

Labour wants to work with the Government on this clear issue of national security. The Government say that the economic cost of barring Huawei would be too great and Mobile UK has estimated that a delay would cost £7 billion. If I compare that with the £8.3 billion committed by the Government to Brexit preparations, however, it strikes me as a clear case of political priorities—and what priorities they are, when we are at a profound national security crossroads.

I hold the National Cyber Security Centre in the highest regard—I thank its representatives for meeting me yesterday—but I ask the Minister to address a concern. The supply chain review report spoke of statutory guidance, but so far we have only had blogs. It is good to be responsive and we know that President Trump’s tweets have some force of law in America. Is the same true of these blogs? Will Ofcom be enforcing them?

The supply chain review report also promised telecoms security requirements, which would set a new bar for security and be enforced by Ofcom. The hon. Member for Rushcliffe seemed to imply that those requirements are available, but I have not seen them. Will the Minister tell me whether they are available, how they are to be enforced and with what resources, for both Ofcom and the Huawei cyber-security observance centre?

Finally, consolidation and competition from the Chinese subsidised sector means that many of the vendors and operators in the telecoms sector have finances that do not look exactly sustainable or stable. What is the Minister doing to assess the financial security of the sector?

As the Government shilly-shallies over national security, we will be tabling amendments to the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill currently going through Parliament that will seek to reduce our dependence on high-risk vendors. I hope I will have the support of the Minister and other Members in this Chamber.

Labour also has proposals on the telecommunications industrial strategy, which has been highlighted by many Members, to ensure that we can take a leap forward in this critical technological area, including support for new standards and a new catapult, to bring together existing centres of excellence to ensure that we can once more be at the forefront of technological innovation. The good news is that, in technology, you are never so far behind that you cannot leapfrog existing technology. The bad news is that it takes investment in strategic vision—a quality that this Government sorely lack. Huawei is a test of both.

I return to my first question. Why are we in this position and what steps are the Government taking to ensure that it does not happen again, and to eliminate our dependence on high-risk vendors? The Government should start to proactively identify future technological needs and invest strategically to ensure that they can be met by a wider range of platform providers.

The Government claim to care about political sovereignty—about taking back control from foreign powers. It is high time that we started caring about technological sovereignty too.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, I inform him that he has considerable time in which to make his contribution and he can take a number of short interventions, if he so chooses. Any time that he leaves at the end, I will give to Sir Iain Duncan Smith for a wind-up speech.

Northern Ireland Economy and Innovation: Government Support

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Ian Paisley

Tuesday 29th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure and an honour to serve under your chairpersonship, Dame Cheryl, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly) on securing this debate. It is third time lucky for her, and also for the House, because the speech with which she opened this debate was passionate, well-informed, comprehensive, and very moving in parts. I, for one, learned a lot from it.

I am proud to represent the party that helped broker the Good Friday agreement, and the current Government’s cavalier approach to preserving that agreement in the Brexit negotiations worries me. As hon. Members have said, the Good Friday agreement is the foundation of peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland, as well as the Republic. The absence of the devolved Government in Stormont is another issue that many hon. Members have mentioned. Labour’s approach rests on increasing local, regional and national democracy, and the lack of resolution to that problem clearly undermines efforts to improve innovation and the economy of Northern Ireland.

I will begin by outlining Labour’s approach to industrial strategy and innovation. It is not a top-down approach; as my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) said, that is not the right approach. We aim to provide support for a devolved Administration and local councils to make decisions in support of their industry and their workers. We have talked a lot in recent months about the differences between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, but there are also many similarities, particularly with my home region, the north-east of England. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) likes to point out every time he intervenes in one of my Adjournment debates, there are many similarities between our regions, particularly our economies and the investment in making and building things over the centuries. The hon. Member for Belfast South spoke movingly about that in the context of Northern Ireland, as well as the years of deindustrialisation and under-investment in infrastructure and education that have left Northern Ireland with some significant economic challenges.

The legendary Harland and Wolff shipyard was recently saved from collapse because workers staged a nine-week sit-in in protest to show that it was still viable, but those who took redundancy face an uncertain future. Wrightbus has also been mentioned—a company that had been operating since 1946, but which closed its doors in September, threatening 1,200 jobs. It was recently bought by the Bamford family after going into administration, although we still do not know what its workers’ fate will be, particularly as the Government propose a Brexit deal that would place trading barriers between that company and the rest of the UK. The right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and the hon. Member for Strangford emphasised the negative impact that would have.

[Ian Paisley]

The business that the hon. Lady has alluded to is in my constituency. It was a very significant employer, equivalent to about 60,000 jobs if it were based here in the mainland, and I am delighted that the Bamford family have invested in it. It is a new chapter for the industry, bringing hydro technology to Northern Ireland. Hopefully, as a result we will get the cleanest, greenest public transport in not only the UK but the world.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I will return to that example. However, my point is that this does not reflect a sound industrial strategy, precisely because the old company collapsed because of its UK customers moving to electric buses and the new company will be making electric buses. A serious industrial strategy would have a plan for transport that could have incentivised the company to move in that direction without the chaos of administration and the sale to a Tory donor, in order to achieve the same outcome. That sort of creative destruction might excite certain Government advisers, but it puts workers under severe stress and often results in employment under worse terms and conditions, as the former employees are in a weaker bargaining position.

That process of collapse and asset stripping is related to the problem of the financialisation of our economy. The last decade has seen the UK economy centred on London and the south-east of England, with a focus on financial services rather than producing things. As the economist Mariana Mazzucato argues, the financial sector has stopped resourcing the real economy. Instead of investing in companies that produce stuff, finance is financing finance. Financialisation changes the motors behind economic activity, giving investors with short-term interests more control over firms, and its legacies are low productivity and low pay. Labour is committed to changing that and putting innovation at the centre of our economy, using our world-class universities—such as Ulster University, and Queen’s University in the constituency of the hon. Member for Belfast South—as drivers of growth, rather than putting off scientific talent from across the world with cruel immigration policies.

Labour’s “innovation nation” mission would raise research and development to 3% of GDP—almost twice what it is now—using science and industry to benefit the whole country. We need to maintain our current centres of excellence, but must also ensure that every region can benefit from innovation and growth. That is why we are committed to putting technology and innovation at the heart of the lowest-paid and least productive sectors. The hon. Member for Belfast South spoke movingly of the need for social mobility in work, which requires increased productivity. We want to restart manufacturing, but we know that most jobs are in the service sector. Some 17% of people employed in Northern Ireland work in wholesale and retail, in the everyday economy. That is why we have plans to create a retail catapult to support those workers.

Much of our additional R&D spend would be drawn on by our industrial strategy missions, such as investing in carbon capture and storage as part of our commitment to decarbonise our economy, delivering hundreds of thousands of green jobs in the process. We propose a £250 billion national investment bank, made up of a network of regional development banks that would properly put regional needs first and restore regional decision making. Earlier this year, the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce said that 77% of service sector firms and 74% of manufacturers were having difficulty recruiting staff. Labour’s national education service will support reskilling, delivering education free at the point of demand from cradle to grave and ensuring that we have the skills that businesses need.

Although the DUP might have secured £200 million in next year’s Budget through its deal with the Government, recent weeks have shown how quickly the Government can change their mind. Labour’s £250 billion national transformation fund would invest in transport and digital infrastructure across the UK without preconditions.

Finally, I will turn to the topic of Brexit. In the 2014-20 block of EU funding, Northern Ireland was allocated a total of €3.5 billion—significantly more than the Government’s offer to the DUP. As we have rightly opposed the Government’s shambolic Brexit deal, we have to question whether that funding will even be delivered. Will the Minister commit to publishing an assessment of the impact on the Northern Irish economy of putting extra tariffs on trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, and making sure that that impact is not negative? Will he also follow Labour’s plan and commit to maintaining the EU levels of structural investment as a minimum? Finally, given the current trade tariffs on EU exports after the row over subsidies to Airbus, what commitment will he give to aerospace workers in Northern Ireland?