UK Telecommunications Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateChris Bryant
Main Page: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda and Ogmore)Department Debates - View all Chris Bryant's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(4 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberMy right hon. Friend is right to raise the point, which is the opportunity created by open RAN technology. It will take a very long time, were the UK minded to do so, to create a new mobile vendor like Ericsson, Nokia or indeed Huawei, but with open RAN we can get UK technologies into the provision of telecoms infrastructure, and that can sit alongside contributions from other like-minded countries around the world. That is how we will create jobs and provide a long-lasting solution.
Basically, the Government’s mobile telephony strategy is in tatters. What is particularly sad is that it was not only predictable; it was predicted, by dozens of Members of Parliament who kept saying to the Government that this was where we would get to in the end. I just wish they sometimes would listen to their own Back Benchers, and obviously Opposition Back Benchers as well. There is unity in the House on this matter, and there has been for some time.
The Secretary of State is like St Augustine: “make me chaste—but not yet.” All he is offering us is a path towards getting rid of these some time in 2027, after the next general election. He will not even tell us when autumn is. Will he tell us precisely when he will publish his Bill, when it will be enacted and why he cannot bring forward the date from 2027?
As ever, the hon. Gentleman is very good at false indignation and theatrics, but in reality it is this Government, unlike the last Labour Government, who have, for the first time, set out a clear date, which will be enshrined in statute, to remove Huawei equipment, and we are stopping the flow into the networks. To do all that, we have to bring forward the telecoms security Bill, which I have said will happen in the autumn. I believe that autumn falls in the months of September, October and November.