Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Carry-over motion & Carry-over motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 30th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I am pleased to say that the Minister for Digital Infrastructure has met every one of the parties my hon. Friend named; indeed, I have met many of them. Essentially, we are working across three strands. First, we are working with the existing vendors—there were three, now to become two—to secure them and make sure we do not lose a further one. We are also working with new potential incumbents such as NEC and Samsung. In addition, we are working across a range of countries, in particular the D10, to ensure that we work together to improve standards in telecoms.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who is being customarily generous in giving way, but can I just make a point to him and hear his answer? This situation has constantly been wrongly described as a market failure. It was not a market failure; the failure was in the reality of one country abusing and breaking World Trade Organisation rules on subsidies. The key problem has been that China has subsidised its providers dramatically, even over 100% on contract, which has killed this market over the last 10 years. Once we release the market by stopping that, the private sector will come back into this industry because competition will be real competition, not broken competition. That is the key point.

[Oliver Dowden]

My right hon. Friend highlights one of a range of different market distortions that have been going on. To a certain extent, there will be some market correction, but the Government also need to intervene, and our diversification strategy addresses that. If we are to get existing vendors who are not currently in the UK market back in, or to create a new open RAN solution, we need to provide financial incentives, and the diversification strategy touches on many of the steps that we propose to take.

We are taking concrete steps towards a solution, but diversification is not just a problem to be solved. It is also an opportunity to be seized. As part of our strategy, we will invest in homegrown solutions that will put us at the forefront of developing 5G technology and all the transformative benefits it brings. The next phase of this work will be taken forward by the Telecoms Diversification Task Force, chaired by Lord Livingston, formerly of BT, and others. I am grateful for the work that he, industry and academic experts have done in developing the strategy and in taking it forward.

The Bill has not been designed around one company, one country or one threat. Its strength is that it creates an enduring, flexible and far-reaching telecoms regime, one that keeps pace with changing technology and changing threats, that supports billions of phone calls, email exchanges and file transfers in this country every day, and that is essential to the UK’s economy and its future prosperity.

I listened carefully to the concerns of Members on both sides of the House in designing the legislation, and I have sought to address those concerns head on in the Bill as it stands before the House. I genuinely hope that the Bill will command cross-party support and that we will be able to work together in the national interest to ensure the security of our telecoms networks. I commend the Bill to the House.

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[Jo Stevens]

I do not want to step beyond my brief and interfere in that of my shadow Cabinet colleague, but we certainly should not be doing business with any companies that breach both human rights and workers’ rights. We have international labour standards in place and these are not companies with which to do business.

Turning now to broadband and 5G roll-out, and the delays and the costs layering on top of them, we have already seen delays in the roll-out of second and third generation fixed broadband, and we are now at the bottom of the OECD tables. In fact, only last week the Government sneaked out in the Chancellor’s spending review plans to water down their broadband promises. Instead of keeping to their manifesto promise to roll out gigabit-speed broadband to every home in Britain by 2025, the Chancellor revealed that the Government are now aiming to have a minimum of 85% coverage by that date. The budget for that plan remains the same, but now only £1.2 billion of the £5 billion will be made available up until 2024, so this will impact on the so-called levelling-up agenda.

The Government’s delay in dealing with the issue of high-risk vendors until now has also meant that there will be added delays and costs to the roll-out of 5G. The Secretary of State accepted that in July, when he said that the cumulative delay would be two to three years. However, the Government’s impact assessment for the Bill does not establish the effect of removing Huawei from the core network on the timescale for the 5G roll-out, so has the Secretary of State’s position, set out in July, of a two to three-year delay changed at all, and why does the impact assessment fail to address that issue? Also in July, the Secretary of State predicted that removing Huawei would cost operators up to £2 billion, but that could be a huge underestimate, because BT alone is saying that it will cost it £500 million, and the costs could be far greater, including the knock-on effects in terms of lost revenue and wider economic benefits.

As well as those economic consequences, there is another impact, because the provision of 5G for most of the UK will increase the digital divide without significant measures to tackle it. The three central problems at the heart of this divide are lack of internet connection, lack of technological devices, and lack of the skills to use new technology in a meaningful way. The Government have promised, and so far failed, to solve the lack of connection, which is a particular problem for under-served communities. There is nothing about 5G that will make it a better option for those communities, who are already lacking affordable access to fast internet. In addition, there is the distinct possibility that in order to access mobile 5G internet, users will need newer and more expensive devices built for those increased speeds. The pandemic has highlighted these divides and thrown into stark relief the need for help and support for those whose lack of connection, skills and equipment is a real barrier both in terms of employment and other meaningful connections.

There is one other significant consequence to the Government’s delay, and that is the new 4G-based emergency services network. That is now unlikely to completely take over from the existing platform until 2024-25. This delay is costing taxpayers millions. If the Government are forced to keep airwaves going beyond 2022, every year of delay adds an extra cost of about £550 million. The core of the ESM network does feature Huawei equipment, but EE has said that it is already working to strip this out and hopes to complete that by 2023. However, can the Secretary of State reassure the House that the presence of Huawei kit in the 4G ESM network will not have any impact on its lifespan, financial implications or security status and safety concerns?

I turn now to the removal of high-risk vendors’ equipment from the 5G networks. For the purposes of this debate, it is probably easier to refer to it as the removal of Huawei equipment, because that is where everybody’s current focus is. This must all be removed from networks by 2027. There is the “no new purchasing” rule from the end of this month, and the Secretary of State has announced today that existing stocks cannot be used after September 2021. However, there are questions for the Government around the implementation of this that I hope the Minister will be able to answer.

I have five specific questions. First, given that the Bill is based on a distinction between the core and the edge of the networks, how confident are the Government of the durability of the barrier between the core and the edge? Secondly, what steps are the Government taking to prioritise the removal of any existing Huawei equipment from the more sensitive core part of the network, and how much equipment does Huawei have in it? Thirdly, are the Government proposing to provide help to businesses who have invested in Huawei equipment ahead of this decision, and will there be legal support, as many operators may have to honour contracts that they cannot actually use or possibly afford? Fourthly, what steps will the Government be taking to work with local authorities and others to minimise disruption to businesses and individuals when removing the equipment? Fifthly and finally, what steps are being taken to minimise the costs to business?

I have one other point, from a different policy angle. When Australia banned Huawei from participating in its 5G network in 2018, China imposed retaliatory measures on Australian goods. The Government’s impact assessment does not address the economic consequences of potential retaliatory measures, so can they explain what steps are being taken to plan for that possibility?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

The hon. Lady makes reference to what the Chinese Government have been doing with regards to the Australians, which is appalling and breaches WTO rules. In a way, her request for the Government to formulate plans against such a breach is really a request of the WTO to act in this case, as it should have done earlier against China’s abuses and breaking of the WTO rules.

[Jo Stevens]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a valid point.

This Bill gives huge powers to the Secretary of State under the auspices of national security, but it does not define what that means. The Secretary of State will be responsible for making national security judgments and decisions in relation to potential high-risk vendors. The impact assessment suggests that he will not do so unilaterally and that he will consult with the NCSC, but it is incumbent on the Government to explain why they consider that the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport—I mean nothing personal to the right hon. Gentleman in saying this—is the appropriate decision maker on issues of national security. Would it not be better for the Secretary of State to conduct a multi-agency review prior to using these national security powers, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) has suggested in relation to the National Security and Investment Bill, which hands similar powers to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy?

The lack of a definition of national security in this Bill raises particular concerns about the significant level of discretion afforded to the Secretary of State, the transparency with which such decisions will be made and the ability of Parliament to scrutinise those decisions. On another issue relating to scrutiny, Parliament is being asked to vote on this primary legislation before significant elements of how it will operate have been published, because secondary legislation will set out specific security requirements that providers must meet and the codes of practice that have been mentioned. Those will only be available after the Bill has received Royal Assent.

We have concerns about the role and the scope of the powers given to Ofcom in this legislation. These are new powers, which are pretty onerous. With Ofcom also expected to be named as the regulator in the promised online harms Bill—when that finally arrives—we are concerned about the resourcing of and the expertise within Ofcom to be able to deliver its statutory duties and responsibilities. We are concerned not so much about the volume of work, but that the administering of this new security regime may require skills that Ofcom, and potentially DCMS, are unlikely currently to possess. The impact assessment with the Bill suggests a combined monitoring cost for DCMS and Ofcom of £7 million to £12 million over a 10-year period. Do the Government really think that this resourcing budget will be sufficient?

Finally, I turn to the issue of diversification of the telecoms sector. In the ’80s and ’90s, as BT was privatised, our telecoms supply chain was allowed to fall mainly into foreign hands, although they were the hands of our allies. Conservative Governments over the last decade squandered the world-leading position that our broadband infrastructure had been left in by the last Labour Government. Successive Conservative Governments have lost, given away or under-invested in our sovereign telecoms capability as that supply chain has become dominated by high-risk vendors. There are of course added benefits to reducing reliance on a small number of global vendors, including increasing competition, driving innovation and improving resilience, but, as BT and others have warned, it will take time to move at scale towards new approaches. Network operators need to be confident in the maturity, performance, integration and security credentials of new vendors and technologies before they are deployed in their main networks. We agree that the Government can and should help to accelerate that progress, because in doing so, there is the potential to create opportunities for the UK to take the lead, as well as to create much-needed jobs. The strategy published today will need significant scrutiny. The £250 million announced in the spending review last week is obviously welcome, but it lacks sufficient detail, and we look forward to hearing more about how it will be spent.

The Secretary of State claims that this Bill will give the UK one of the toughest telecoms security regimes in the world and allow us to take the action necessary to protect our networks, and I hope he is right. We will not oppose the Bill’s Second Reading, but we have many concerns that will need to be considered and addressed in Committee. The Bill that the House eventually passes must take steps to ensure that our telecoms supply chain is resilient in the future, or we will be forced to return here in a short time to deal with the next Huawei.

We must be mindful, as with all legislation, that we seek to anticipate the problems of the future rather than just deal with the issues that we face today. We of course fully support steps to remove high-risk vendors from the network, but they must go hand in hand with credible measures to diversify the supply chain. We are in this situation because there are no viable alternatives to Huawei, homegrown or otherwise, and that is, in part, a result of the chronic under-investment and lack of leadership from the Government on digital infrastructure. We have to ensure that this does not happen again.

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[Mark Pritchard]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I am delighted that the Secretary of State has set out that there is going to be a new national telecoms lab. I am not sure whether he has decided on the location, but I commend the telecoms expertise of Shropshire and the west midlands to the Minister.

The Government’s own telecoms supply chain review, published by DCMS in July 2019, found that

“the telecoms market is not working in a way that incentivises good cyber security”—

perhaps another example of British understatement. This Bill will end that, and rightly so.

In its October 2020 report, the Defence Committee, ably led by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), concluded that the current 5G

“regulatory situation for network security is outdated and unsatisfactory.”

I thank all the members of that Committee for the work that they have done in highlighting that.

I welcome the fact that the Bill will strengthen the security framework for technology used in 5G and full-fibre networks, including electronic equipment and the hardware and software at phone mast sites and telephone exchanges, and that it will give the Government new powers to issue directions to public telecoms providers to manage the risk of perceived high-risk vendors. It is right that the Bill will allow the Government to impose controls on telecom providers’ use of any goods, services or facilities supplied by high-risk vendors.

I very much welcome the Government’s new powers to limit and remove high-risk vendors, such as Huawei, about which we have heard so much already, from the UK telecoms network. I also very much welcome the new and revised timetable that the Government have announced today for doing this. In saying that, I hope that the Government are not being overly ambitious, as we heard from other hon. Members, but it is right to establish the principle today and move more swiftly on this key issue of national security and diversity in the marketplace.

I welcome the Bill incentivising better security by financially penalising providers that operate below minimum security standards, but I hope—the Minister is here—that a carrot-and-stick approach will be the default DCMS and Ofcom approach, rather than just a stick, as it is the private sector’s co-operation that will help us to move forward on this. It is very much key to the market diversification that the Government want and, more widely, to the partnership in cyber-security resilience in both the private and public sectors. We do not want to have enmity with the very people that the Government need to work more closely with in dealing with these issues.

The Bill makes Ofcom responsible for monitoring and enforcing telecoms providers’ compliance with their security duties where providers do not meet their obligations. I gently ask the Government whether they feel that Ofcom has the necessary teeth. Will Ofcom outsource or buy in any additional and required expertise?

The Bill, rightly, does not allow vendors to have access to the UK telecoms network denied, removed or limited for any reasons other than the protection of the UK’s national security, again making sure that we are not putting up new barriers to new entrants to the marketplace. It is also welcome that the Bill does not give the Secretary of State the right to limit or remove vendors to protect or improve the commercial interests of other vendors in the marketplace. I hope that the Minister will elucidate this important point so that there can be, from today, investor, shareholder and commercial safeguards that will allow any of those reading Hansard in the private sector to be reassured.

I would like to ask the Minister some questions. How will the Government ensure that Ofcom has sufficient staff with the necessary skills to undertake this work before it assumes its new responsibilities, which are separate from the point of buying in or outsourcing? Even if someone is buying in or outsourcing, they need to have the skills to know what they are outsourcing to and for, and so it is with buying it in, making sure that they are getting the right people in.

How will the Minister’s Department ensure that Ofcom is provided with the necessary information and relevant data on what is a new area of expertise and work for it, particularly in this detail? I welcome the fact that the Bill requires the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a copy of all designated vendor directions and designation notices, except where doing so would be contrary to the interests of national security. However, when such information cannot be laid before Parliament, as was alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, will the Minister undertake to provide that information to the Intelligence and Security Committee so that Parliament and the public know that there is sufficient and adequate oversight?

Finally, as the shadow Secretary of State asked, given the recent experience of the Australian Government, what can the Minister say today on the record to deter any temptation by the Chinese Government to take any similar retaliatory measures against the UK? Does he agree that if they were so tempted—I hope they would not be—perhaps the £20 billion trade surplus for China might focus calmer and more reasonable heads in Beijing today?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I hear my hon. Friend’s point, but does he not agree that one of the greatest bastions against this behaviour by the Chinese Government would be for all members of the free world, particularly the Five Eyes, to come together both to condemn their behaviour and to themselves talk about introducing sanctions against China if it carries on behaving like this?

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[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I welcome the Government bringing forward this Bill now, and I congratulate them on having listened, which is not always something that Governments can be accused of. The Secretary of State and his Minister, whom I welcome—the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) —have listened to many concerns, and measures to address them are now embedded in the Bill.

China recently said that if there was any further interference, it would poke the eyes out of the Five Eyes. This Bill puts the missing fifth eye back into the Five Eyes, because we have been laggard, lazy and late on this, and I think this would probably be the case across the board, so perhaps that is a positive. The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) made a very good speech. He was right to say that this is not about China. There are plenty of security risks, as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, said. Russia is a massive security risk to us and has probably carried out more cyber-attacks on us than anybody else. That is debatable, but it has a very big criminal network that attacks us the whole time.

I accept that. However, the difference is that China is now the driving force for our introducing this Bill, because it poses a very different kind of threat. The fact is that China has juxtaposed the ability to dominate in a market sense, which sucks us in—I will come to project kowtow and the mistakes that were made—while at the same time forcing us to often turn a blind eye to some of the work it did, which we do not do with Russia and some of the more immediate threats. It is a peculiar and different challenge, which is now embedded in the Bill.

My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East made the important point that the nature of our exposure has been known about for some considerable time, and we should not have ignored it. I thank my colleagues who joined the Huawei interest group early on, in winter last year, and who have campaigned to try to tighten up these security measures. Following that, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China was set up, which is now made up of politicians on the left and right from 38 countries, and they are asking us to tighten up our security co-operation and ensure that we get this right.

This Bill is long overdue, and it is welcome, but I want to highlight three issues in it. First, although it is not in the text of the Bill, the Government have now announced that they accept 2027 as the end point for Huawei as a provider that may be high-risk and that no new Huawei equipment may be installed from September 2021. That is very welcome. In fact, the September 2021 date is better than I would have expected at this point, so I congratulate the Government on being very clear about that. That is a more important date than 2027, in effect, because it opens the market and allows others to recognise now that they have a possibility of re-entering a market that was closed to them by one company in particular—there are other companies in China—that has manipulated the normal rules of market adherence and subsidy. It has been a disaster for us not to recognise that on that basis alone, forgetting the security risks as well.

I am, however, concerned by another point about the process, which leaves the Secretary of State to make these decisions going forward, against criteria that are laid out, and I will come back to that. I think my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East said, “Who will be the advisers? Who will advise?” That is absolutely right, and the Secretary of State should listen to the Chair of the Committee on that point. It is important to structure who will advise the Secretary of State and how that will happen. Perhaps the Committee can have a very strong look at that and advise the Government on how to structure that.

There should be a more formal structure embedded in the Bill, otherwise it will be too easy for a Secretary of State, under pressure from the Business Secretary or a Chancellor, such as one we once had, who was very keen on a golden era, to be leant on and told, “Do you really need to go down this road?” That will happen. I sat as a Secretary of State, and I can tell the House that all that stuff happens, and anyone else will say that, too. A more structured approach would not allow the Secretary of State to miss the right people on advice. That will be very important.

The descriptions in the proposed new sections of the Communications Act 2003 under clause 16 of the Bill are important, and I will come back to those, because the list gives the Secretary of State plenty of scope. Tightening up the advice means that that scope will not therefore be wasted.

We are here because of the mistakes of the golden era—the great kowtow, as I would rather call it—where we too often ignored the realities of what was going on in security terms for the sake of this great drive that we would benefit massively from the opening up of trade with China. There was also a mistaken belief: too often, liberal democracies and all of us who believe in freedom of speech and the general freedoms believe, rather arrogantly, that all we have to do is open up markets and everyone else will realise that their system must be wrong and therefore they will change it.

That was the great belief. I was told it endlessly in government, “Don’t worry about this sort of stuff. China will change once they realise exactly how wonderful it is to trade with the west.” Well, they did not. They do not want to change, because they think that their form of government is a better form of government. They will say, “We are opened up to the markets. We are getting the benefits of the marketplace.” China was invited to join the World Trade Organisation back in 2001. There have been real problems since then with market forces, but I want to come back to the security elements.

The worry is that others of the Five Eyes spotted what was going on long before us, and we ignored a lot of the evidence that we should have been tightening up much, much earlier. We should have been concerned. I cannot remember which Member said that security should be the No. 1 consideration, over everything else. We lost that—I hate to say that—and considered it just one of the things we might look at.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am not one for doing the Government’s job or supporting them, but I do not think we did that actually, in terms of the Huawei cyber-security evaluation centre. We were ahead of other countries that did not do that, including the United States, and let Huawei into their country networks without any checks whatever. But the issue has to be security. I know that the right hon. Gentleman has strong views about China trade, but security has to be at the heart of things, which I think is where we have been up to now.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I have to say that I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman on this. Although the Huawei cyber-security evaluation centre was installed, when I sat and listened to people from it making a presentation to us earlier in the year, it was almost as though we were watching people who were kind of squeezing their own genuine, real opinion, which would have been coming via GCHQ, about how the real threat was formed. Their arguments did not stand up, even in the face of people who were not every day working on security.

The truth is we need to be careful, and it should have been a tighter position from the word go. The very fact that the Government are bringing this measure forward now suggests that that was not the case. [Interruption.] Listen, I am critical of my own Government. I resigned from the damn thing at one point. I have to say that I therefore do believe it is possible for great Governments, like mine, to get things wrong.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

In defence of the Huawei cyber-security evaluation centre, its sixth annual report, from September this year, is absolutely devastating in its criticisms of Huawei’s failures to be secure or to make improvements when insecurities have been highlighted.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I agree completely. The point is that when we were talking about this earlier on, it was clear that that was, underneath it all, the centre’s real opinion, but it was kind of moving and modifying. It was also used in a political way, by the way, which I did not think was right. An opinion is either there or it is not; do not get people in to brief Back Benchers about what they should be thinking. I thought that was wrong.

We are absolutely in the right place at this point and the Bill goes a long way towards achieving that. However, we need to do some other things that could be in the Bill. For example, the Bill is about security but it does say on the front that it goes slightly wider than security: the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) signed the bit that says:

“In my view the provisions of the Telecommunications (Security) Bill are compatible with the Convention rights.”

That convention is the European convention on human rights. We need to ask ourselves whether that idea applies to many regimes—not just China—and companies that come from those regimes that may be guilty of human rights abuses.

I asked the Minister previously, in a private context, whether he would consider including in proposed new section 105Z8 of the Communications Act 2003, on designation notices, the inclusion of the ability, where it may arise, to do something in the area of genocide and the involvement of companies in that process. There is very strong evidence in a couple of cases—particularly in the Uyghur case—of the use of slave labour, which should result in those companies being outlawed. The Minister may argue that this Bill might not be the appropriate vehicle for that because it is specifically about security, but every Bill has on its face that we abide by human rights laws. I am not trying to widen the Bill’s scope; I am giving the Minister the opportunity to have that extra element as part of his possible designations. After all, we are dealing with countries and nations that have, particularly in China’s case, torn up much of the book on co-operation and diplomacy.

Let me raise a final point before I conclude. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) has gone, but he mentioned Australia. One of our Five Eyes partners, Australia, had the temerity to ask for an inquiry into the covid outbreak. Since then, the Chinese have attempted, in essence, massively to beat up Australia in a very undiplomatic and aggressive manner. It started with abuse of the individuals who asked for an inquiry and then went further into abuse of the Government. Subsequently, it has gone on to sanctions: the Chinese has now broken WTO rules, with sanctions of more than 200% on Australian wine.

In the past couple of days, the Chinese have produced what I think is called a meme—which is a mocked-up instrument on the internet—that shows something about an Australian soldier trying to kill a child. This is appalling behaviour and I want my Government, at some point, to be very clear that such behaviour is simply not to be borne. Although we have said that we stand with China, the key thing about this sort of thing and our co-operation with our Five Eyes partners is to do more than stand with China: we should condemn behaviour like that that deliberately targets and demeans a democratic nation that goes by the rule of law and human rights, which is something that China does not do. I do hope that the Minister will pass on to his colleagues that no matter what we do with this Bill, we need to make sure that we stand up with our Five Eyes partners, now that we have the National Security and Investment Bill and are moving in that direction, and never allow any one of them to be isolated and picked off one at a time. I commend the Bill to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

The next listed speaker has withdrawn, so we go straight to the Chair of the Defence Committee, Tobias Ellwood.

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[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be able to speak in this debate and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder), who was so kind about me it almost makes me think he has set me up for a fall. It is also very good to be able to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) who we might think, having listened to his speech, has every single high-tech industry in his constituency. If that is the case, I am sure he will be willing to share some of it with the south-west.

My maiden speech was made during consideration of the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill, and the shadow Minister was good enough to attend. After that, I have taken a keen interest in this topic and the issues of national security that surround it. The Minister has consistently met me, members of the inter-parliamentary alliance on China and those who had concerns about Huawei, and I thank him for doing so. The result that we have got today is a real progression and benefit to our national security network, and also an example of what we can do when the House works together in a consensual way.

We know that the international landscape is now far more varied and dangerous, and that it seeks to exploit domestic networks. A recent example of this was highlighted in a Bloomberg article that cited Nortel, a Canadian company that was so badly hacked—reportedly—by Huawei in 2000 that it led to the collapse of the company over a period of 10 years. Some 5,000 employees were working in my constituency in the early 2000s. That shows that a company supported by the Chinese state can have a dangerous impact on companies around the world, as well as on our own state infrastructure.

The steps in the Bill are very welcome. Not only will they check the dominance of international companies such as Huawei, but they will identify potential future threats. As right hon. and hon. Members have said, this is not an anti-China Bill or an anti-Huawei Bill; it is about national security and identifying future threats that we may face. It is also an opportunity to focus on our domestic market and what we can do to create new businesses and opportunities and use our homegrown talent. As the Secretary of State mentioned, the £250 million national telecommunications lab will be a perfect opportunity to cultivate and innovate new technologies and encourage new people to go into the sector. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) was kind enough to suggest that it should be based in his constituency, but I might also suggest that it comes down to the south-west and Paignton in my constituency, which has the high-tech EPIC centre focused on photonics. I will put that in there, and I hope to meet the Minister to discuss how we might make that happen.

As we know, how far we can go with this depends on how our willpower is positioned and our determination to cultivate British talent, skills and innovation. The diversification point has been made several times, and much has been said, but we also have to be conscious of the need to create the environment that will see new entrants into the marketplace. Relying on Ericsson and Nokia is all very well, but we can and will be able to develop new companies with our Five Eyes colleagues—the same point was made by the US Secretary of State earlier this year, looking at opportunities to build new companies together. Where diversification is limited, there are correct measures to guide and limit high-risk vendors in our telecommunications network, and those are contained in the Bill, notably in clauses 15 and 23.

I also take the point that the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) made about parliamentary oversight. I hope the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), will forgive me for suggesting that if the Government are unwilling to bring forward proposals for parliamentary oversight, they could go to that Committee so that it could scrutinise them. I apologise for adding to his workload, and I hope he does not think that that is a poor suggestion.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) mentioned convention rights, including human rights. One of the biggest grievances many of us have had in terms of Huawei’s role in our telecommunications infrastructure network relates to China’s violations of human rights. The Minister might say that this is not the right time or the right Bill to look at human rights, and if it is not the right Bill, I hope he will say in his closing remarks when the right time to address this point is. I know there are other opportunities, alongside the National Security and Investment Bill, but I would be keen to hear at which point we might address human rights.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend’s excellent speech. The Minister will note, as I pointed out to him, that this Bill is signed off on the basis of the application of rights, including human rights. Every Bill has the right to be amended.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his experience and knowledge in guiding me on that point. Of course, I accept that he is right on that matter. In that case, how might we address the issue I have raised?

We have righted a wrong. We have addressed an issue on which we have been seen as out of kilter with our international allies. Now, we have the opportunity to go further and to pass this fantastic piece of legislation. We can harness the international community and, as with the Augean stables, clear up the mess. We can make sure that, in future, we have a robust and secure telecommunications infrastructure network that is the pride of Britain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I hear what my hon. Friend says, but surely he would concede that, as this Bill deals specifically with vendors and the vendors are themselves located, originally, in countries that may have been guilty of these abuses of whatever nature, should those companies be found to be using slave labour—such as some that are already referenced in this Bill—that would be a reason not to have them. Would he not think that they were high-risk vendors for the very simple reason that they abused those human rights?

[Matt Warman]

As I said earlier, we would want to apply those standards not just to telecoms companies but to the garment industry and in a host of other areas where we know that there is the potential for similar abuses. I absolutely hear what my right hon. Friend says, but Britain can do better than focus simply on the relatively narrow aspect of telecoms.