Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

15. What steps his Department is taking with international partners in response to the global cyber-threat posed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

16. What steps his Department is taking with international partners in response to the global cyber-threat posed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Steve Barclay)]

The Government are dedicating significant resources to understanding and countering Russia’s cyber-threat, working with our allies. That has included joint advisories with our Five Eyes partners on how to mitigate that threat.

[Steve Barclay]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. We are spending £2.6 billion over the next three years to counter that threat. That is additional to the significant funding going into the National Cyber Force, which gives us offensive capability as well. Alongside that, we have a whole of society approach as set out in our national cyber strategy. I know that you, Mr Speaker, will take a great interest in particular in the north-west cyber-corridor, which is about leveraging that investment in the National Cyber Force and making it about skills across the north-west as a whole.

[Damian Collins]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that disinformation campaigns from hostile foreign states such as Russia also pose a cyber-security threat and that it is important that tech platforms work closely with the intelligence services and the Cabinet Office to identify proactively those threats and to address them?