Procurement Bill [Lords]

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Damian Green

Report stage
Tuesday 13th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I did not send the hon. Lady a copy of my speech but I am glad she has jumped into this because I want to move on to that point now.

Finishing on the point I have been making, however, it is good that the Government are moving on this, but I do not think they have moved enough because I am very worried about the word “sensitive”, which the Minister is talking about. I will come back to that, but this move will begin to bring us into line with the United States, who moved on this under their Hikvision Act, which banned it back in 2019. It is worth reminding colleagues, too, that the European Union is also ahead of us on this now, because the President has said that they must do some “de-risking” on the issue of threats from China. So we are coming back into line on doing that and the west is waking up to this threat.

It is not just about all the threats that are clear under the obligations and the data China collects—it data-harvests, by the way. When the Government said that they were banning TikTok from Government telephones, I made the observation that that is not enough because people might still have TikTok on their own phones. Having run a Department for six years, I know that Ministers’ telephones sit on their desks next to their Government telephones, and therefore the Chinese will be data-harvesting on the back of that. One of my Government colleagues said that he wants to get in touch with the younger people; fat chance they are going to listen to a word they are saying. The truth is he should get rid of TikTok like the rest and be real about it. We must now make it clear that Government telephones and the telephones of Ministers should no longer have TikTok.

[Damian Green]

I am glad that my right hon. Friend has moved this amendment, which as he knows I strongly support. To return to my point about timescale, security cameras are normally replaced every five to seven years. Does he think we have five to seven years in which we can leave these cameras in place in public sector buildings, or would he like their removal to be accelerated?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

The Cabinet Office must now decide the pace of this change. I hear that it is talking about six months and will come forward with a clear and explicit decision. In line with what my right hon. Friend has just said, it ought to explain the timescales for how Departments are going to take them away and how quickly, and an endpoint. That is critical, because otherwise, as I saw with the FOIs, Government Departments will do whatever they can not to do this because they are frightened and they say it will cost them extra. What really costs us is if they fail to do it.

Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Damian Green

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and she anticipates a point I was about to make. The key point that arises from her remarks is that the British Government have, sensibly and rightly, introduced the British National (Overseas) visa, which allows people in Hong Kong who registered for that scheme before the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 the right to settle in this country. The problem is that many of the dissenters and demonstrators in Hong Kong are under 25, and therefore too young to have qualified under that route as it currently stands. I seek to give under 25-year-olds that route as well.

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

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on having tabled this new clause. It speaks of the decency of what we represent here in this House, and I support him in that. Does he agree that right now, many of the individuals he is referring to are desperately looking to us for some hope of freedom? We as this, the mother of all Parliaments, need to offer them the chance of that freedom.

[Damian Green]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. Most of these young people are fighting for the values that we fight for and that this Parliament represents—that I why I am so pleased that Members across the House have supported the new clause. In practical terms, I have thanked Ministers for being positive in their engagement, and I hope to hear more from the Minister when he winds up the debate.

Although the Government are moving in this direction, and their heart is in the right place on this, I fear that at this stage they may not move far enough. In particular, I know the Minister is keen on using the youth mobility scheme, which exists not just for Hong Kong but for many other countries, as a route for young people in Hong Kong to move towards settlement. However, I will enter two quite large caveats about using that scheme.

The first is straightforward practicality, which I can illustrate by the example of a 19-year-old young woman from Hong Kong called Venus—that is not her real name, for obvious reasons. She was involved in many protests, and the university she was at reported those protests to the Hong Kong authorities. She evaded the police for a time, but she soon became aware that they were coming for anyone involved in protests, under the pretext of the national security law. She fled to the UK from Hong Kong the day after, and several of her friends were arrested two weeks later. If she had applied through the youth mobility scheme, it would have taken at least three weeks for her to get out of Hong Kong, which would not have been enough. That is a practical point about using the youth mobility scheme.

My other point is that the youth mobility scheme is reciprocal, requiring both sides to agree. If the Chinese authorities, or the Hong Kong authorities, decided not to participate in a reciprocal scheme, they could close it down tomorrow. What would Ministers do in those circumstances?

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Damian Green

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I will give way in a second, but I am conscious that you want me to make some progress, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I worry when we start compromising security. I worry—and this is the point I want to make—that we have no friends out there any more on this issue. The Canadians, the Americans, the Australians and the New Zealanders all disagree with us. I know there is sometimes a habit in this country of people quietly and smugly saying, “Well, we’re better than they are”, and I understand that. It may be the suggestion of the Security Council—[Interruption.] Well, you know what it is like. I learn a lot from my nationalist colleagues. [Interruption.] I do; I used to live there.

The point is that when people say that smugly, the answer is, “No, we’re not.” The Australians are adamant that they do not believe it is possible to manage this process, and everyone else from the Americans onwards says the same. The Japanese are absolutely seething with us over this because it undermines them, and they are of course very close to what they consider to be a threat. Then we get others, people whom we are not necessarily close to, such as the Vietnamese, who do not even want to do this because they recognise that there is a real threat. My point is that, once we add this all up, there is simply nobody out there who agrees.

I therefore very simply say this: no matter how intelligent, brilliant and great our security and cyber-security services are, how is it that they are right and everybody else is wrong? In fact, at a briefing the other day, I saw them trashing the Australian view of this. I simply say, fine, but the reality is that we are alone on this matter, and I think that that is a very bad place to be in relation to our closest allies when it comes to security.

[Damian Green]

My right hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. Is not the point that Britain’s reputation in this area is very high, and if Britain takes the wrong step and allows Huawei to dominate our telecoms infrastructure for decades, other countries will think that it is the right thing to do? In particular, smaller countries around the world will think, “If the British think it’s okay, then we’ll do it as well”, and this could be the route by which China dominates telecoms infrastructure in many countries around the world for decades to come.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

You know what, I think that is almost the most powerful point. We have a leadership role in this, and many countries look to us. The reason why it is so important, I believe, that Huawei captures this market is very simply that it knows it will be able to go around to all these other countries that have lesser security than us and say, “Well, you know, the British have got a brilliant reputation, and they’ve said it’s okay, therefore what are you worried about? You don’t even begin to know half of what they know, so now we’ll just sell our goods over here.” The eventual aim of this is to capture most of these networks, and when it has done that, as the National Cyber Security Centre peculiarly said, we may be completely in hock to it because all the other companies will have fallen away, and we will be left with the invidious choice of not doing 6G because we cannot risk it and do not have anybody else to go to. Now is the time to restore our faith in those companies, and give them a chance to compete and to produce the product. They are less risky—I accept there are always risks, but they are far less risky—than the high-risk vendors.

Huawei and 5G

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Damian Green

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I agree. That is exactly the point I was making.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

I was on a radio programme a couple of weeks ago with a director of Huawei in this country, who happens to be a former permanent secretary. I was surprised to hear him describe Huawei as being rather like John Lewis, in that it was owned by its employees, and that we had all got this wrong. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is an absurd characterisation of Huawei?