Huawei and 5G

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Indeed. We are all neighbours in the global environment, as the dreadful coronavirus shows us.

The problem is compounded—this is not really spoken of in these debates, and the Government never make any mention of this—is a deeper and further problem. It exposes the degree to which western Governments, including our Government, to a degree—I am talking about successive Governments; this is not a shot at my Government, as the issue goes back further than that—have taken their eye off the ball. Much of the available equipment, including electronic sub-assemblies, is of unknown security provenance. At present, beyond existing contracted functions, we have little to no idea what else lies in our installed systems. UK Governments and others—I particularly want to focus on my Government—have done little to tackle the problem. Understanding what is inside the chips and processors is critical. Any malware needs to be detected. Surely, after all these years, we could have worked to ensure as much as possible that products deployed into secure or critical national infrastructure are auditable, so that we understand what is in them. What better way to do that than by collaboration with our Five Eyes allies, to ensure that we drive security much deeper? Nothing has happened, however.

We are in a mess, and the only way to get out of it, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) said, is to ensure that Huawei’s involvement is reduced from the Government’s present position of 35% down to 0%. I recognise that may take a little time, but that should be the purpose of the Government over the next two years.

Successive British Governments—this is the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) made—have tried to get close to China in the hope that we can take advantage of their markets. I recognise that that is not unreasonable, but in so doing, we seem to be playing a dangerous game. After all, this totalitarian regime is not an ally of ours, and we get confused about that at times, even if the Foreign Office is reluctant to admit that China poses a threat to us, for fear of upsetting the Chinese Government. That threat is not just in its cyber-attacks on our systems, but also in the way in which it does not obey the international rules-based order in trade. That point has been made today. By the way, no other country does a level of business proportionate to its population as much as Australia does with China. Australia is not frightened of saying no to the procedure, and I do not see anybody trying to beat it up on trade. Sometimes I wonder if we do not project the sense of power or force that we should.

As the UK leaves the EU, we should avoid kowtowing, as my right hon. Friend so rightly said—that wonderful Chinese act of placing one’s forehead on the ground in front of one’s respected superior—to China or anyone else. The British Government should commit to reducing and eradicating our dependence on Huawei, in line with our allies. That is really important. After all, defence of the realm is surely our first priority, and that goes for cyber-space as well. If defence of the realm is our first priority, what the Government are proposing today is not defence of the realm, but semi-defence of the realm, and that simply will not do.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

We have had a 26 minute-speech or thereabouts and 15 interventions, some very substantial, which have maybe taken the ardour out of some people already. I have 11 speakers to get in, including the Front-Bench spokespersons for the Government and the Opposition parties. I will therefore be time-limiting Members to four minutes, to allow all the speakers on my official list to speak. However, if they take interventions, that could be reduced or may knock a speaker out.

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[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

I call Stuart C McDonald.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I will take it, Chair, because the other one is not here. I guess you mean me. [Laughter.]

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

I beg your pardon.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

That is quite all right.

We can tell this debate is important because of the variety of personalities sitting here. We have several former Cabinet Ministers, a former Deputy Prime Minister, and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The Chairman and the former Chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee were here earlier. If the Tory party had a politburo, this would be it. It is clearly a sign that the Government have trouble ahead, and so they should. I do not need to echo many of the objections already made by Members here this morning. I am sure they will continue as the debate goes on, not only here in this room today, but in other parts of the House.

I want the House to consider the issue in a much broader sense. Who writes the rules on this part of international engagement when it comes to things such as the use of chemical or nuclear weapons, or traditional kinetic warfare? We have all kinds of international rules and treaties on the international order, as the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) mentioned, but we have very little written down internationally with our partners when it comes to the cyber world. As far as I can see, as the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) said, by dint of China buying its way into the market, China is writing the rules. The decision has been made by the UK Government from a position of enormous weakness. I take no pleasure in that. I want the Government to get this right, but they are getting it wrong—badly wrong.

The Government are getting it wrong not only because of all the issues around privacy and the broader issues of security, and not only because of the actor involved and its appalling human rights record, but they are in danger of being present but not involved, to coin a phrase, when it comes to setting rules that our citizens rely on so that we can live peacefully, freely and with prosperity. If this is global Britain, I am concerned. Global Britain is not my project, but I wish it well. It is important that it is got right. From where I stand, this looks like gullible Britain, and I think that is a great shame.

During the 2014 independence referendum the parliamentary private secretary to the Minister, the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), who is sitting here, would have argued that an independent Scotland would be thrown out of Five Eyes and unable to get access to it. It strikes me that the United Kingdom is doing its best to get chucked out of Five Eyes at this very minute, and I do not want that to happen.

I hope that the Minister will respond to many of the concerns that have been raised, but we all need to lift our eyes a bit. We need greater international co-operation on attribution. Given that we do not have—here comes the dreaded phrase—a coalition of the willing in order to set some rules, we will continue to be played by not just China but Iran, Russia, North Korea, non-state actors and surrogate actors. My goodness, what a mess that will make.

If we are serious about global Britain—my party has something to say on that—let us have that discussion, but we cannot talk about Huawei and 5G in isolation, because there is a much bigger picture and something more dangerous at stake.

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[Ruth Edwards]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. There are engineering problems in Huawei, and the Government and many UK customers have been very clear that they want Huawei to solve them. The news that I must give him is that if he started looking at the code of any supplier, he would see security issues. In security engineering, I am afraid that people make mistakes when it comes to software.

Equipment and performance is monitored in-life by telcos, and threat hunting is carried out across the whole network. Technologies are increasingly powered by artificial intelligence. AI look for anomalies of behaviour both inside the network, in terms of patterns of incoming traffic, and suspicious outbound traffic. Attempts to sabotage equipment or exfiltrate data at scale will be detected.

The National Cyber Security Centre, my former employer BT and many other telcos have all been very clear that they have not previously detected attempts at malicious activity by Huawei. If they had, they would hardly be doing business with them for their 5G networks. However, we cannot rely on the past to determine the future. That is why the cap on the amount of equipment provided by one supplier is so important, as it stops an over-reliance on one supplier in the network. Other arrangements, such as the escrow of source code, enable providers to isolate equipment in their networks and take over full operation of it, should that be deemed necessary due to mounting international tensions.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Jim Shannon.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you, Mr Paisley. It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for introducing it, for setting the scene so well, and for speaking for the majority of us in this House and in the Chamber today, and the majority of those outside as well.

I am no tech expert—far from it—yet I have had concerns from the outset about the safety of allowing Huawei into the 5G network. When I find myself at a loss regarding the nuances of an issue, I always turn to those who understand it much better. For that purpose, I have looked at the relations of other nations with Huawei, and the facts cannot be ignored. My concerns have led me to question the Minister, today and on previous occasions.

Security and democracy must have priority. Defence of the realm, as the right hon. Member referred to, for this great nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland must be protected. Our first duty must always be to our citizens and constituents. They have told me that they share the deep concerns that so far all Members bar one have expressed in the Chamber today.

My fears and concerns have not been assuaged since the question I asked the then Minister, the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), in April last year. I said:

“Huawei has been banned from the core of 5G, but it is to be allowed to operate at the edge. The edge includes masts and antennas, which are also very sensitive. Canada and New Zealand have expressed concern, and Australia and the United States of America have said there is no relevant distinction between the core and the edge of 5G networks. What discussions has the Minister had with those four countries, and has their determination had any influence on our decision?”—[Official Report, 25 April 2019; Vol. 658, c. 892.]

The then Minister’s response was that discussions with our Five Eyes partners were ongoing, yet we appear to have dismissed that, while still allowing that there is a safety implication of Chinese interference and reliance on that technology. Again, I find myself uneasy and desirous that, even at this stage, we rethink this massive step. That is the feeling of the majority in the Chamber.

China is guilty of some of the worst, barbarous, evil, surgical human rights abuses against its own citizens. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and others have referred to the Uyghur Muslims, but it is not just them; there are also the Christians, the Falun Gong, and many other people. China has tried to re-educate them through forced labour and surveillance of what they are doing, and has used Huawei 5G to do so. Huawei has also been deeply involved in organ harvesting—commercial harvesting of organs from people who just happen to have a different faith.

The Financial Post has given this summary:

“The United Kingdom has now broken ranks with many of its closest allies”—

allies in whom we have great trust—

“including fellow members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing club. The British government classified Chinese company as a ‘high-risk vendor’ and banned it from the core network that manages access and authentication, but nevertheless permitted it to compete for up to 35 percent market share in the country’s access network—that is, its antennae and similar equipment.”

I am only one of 650 Members of this House, and I absolutely believe in the tenets of democracy, but I will not stay silent. I do not believe that what the Government are doing is in the best security interests of this nation, and if steps can be taken to pare it back, those steps must be taken. We have been known as security giants, and I do not like the idea that we are now standing on the shoulders of Chinese giants. We have stood alone, and can do so again, but it is always best that we stand with our allies. The Chinese may hopefully be strong trading partners post Brexit, but by no stretch of the imagination can they ever be considered our allies; their human rights abuses cannot be ignored. This issue is concerning, and we must not leave it here.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

I call Tom Tugendhat.

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[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

The hon. Member took very little time, which gives considerable time to the shadow Minister. I call Chi Onwurah.

[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.