Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Julian Knight]

I thank the hon. Member for her kind question, but also for her acknowledgment of the ongoing work of the Select Committee, on which she played a fantastic role during her time with us.

The hon. Member references compliance officers, and the key, of course, is to make the regime pre-emptive rather than reactive. I think that actually helps freedom of expression, basically because if we in effect have this baked into the system, there is less chance of take-downs as a result.

When it comes to social media companies and the Government’s interaction with them, there is an idea that the Government have in effect run scared of social media and the huge lobby. These are the new masters of the universe—the new oil companies, the new banking institutions—and they have huge and enormous powers. I think it is therefore beholden on the Government to draw from every part of this House in order to come up with a framework that can best bring them in to be good citizens in our society. I am hopeful of the time when Nick Clegg is not perhaps as welcome in putting his views, but is in that regard perhaps the same as Members in this place. I do concur to some degree with the hon. Member, but every Government in the world is also facing this huge issue.

On publishing legal advice, I do believe wholeheartedly in complete transparency. I think that part of the process of being cross-party and getting this Bill right actually should be absolute transparency when it comes to such matters.

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and his entire Committee on this report into what he correctly describes in the report as a very “complex” Bill. Given its complexity, does he agree with me that it is very important that the Government response both to his Committee’s report and, indeed, to the report of the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill is not just substantive, but timely and reaches all of us well in advance of Second Reading of the Bill, so that we can all consider properly the Government’s responses?

[Julian Knight]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend, and I do concur in that respect. We have waited a very long time for this Bill, and we have to get it right. I think we have waited too long for the Bill, but that is the past—that is done. What we cannot do now is rush things to such an extent that we cannot take everyone’s views on board, and therefore I would concur. Basically, this has to be a structure that survives, potentially for decades to come, and is built on as we see challenges going forward, so I concur with my right hon. and learned Friend.

BBC Funding

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

Excellent question. I am not going to conflate Channel 4 with the BBC; I am here to talk about the settlement of the licence fee. The second part of question means that I cannot remember the first part, but the hon. Member made a really important point about the BBC World Service. The BBC, with the billions of pounds of funding—£23 billion—it is receiving, will still be able to meet its core mission and purposes.

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend must be right that the BBC cannot stand still while the rest of the world moves along, but does she accept that, when we think about the future funding of the BBC, we have to consider both the content that is marketable and is going to be commercially successful, and the content that is not, but will act as the beacon she describes—not just to this country, but to the rest of the world—in quality broadcasting and news and current affairs content in particular? Is not that kind of content likely to continue to need subsidy in any future funding model we design?

[Ms Dorries]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that contribution and he is absolutely right. One of the things we do not want is for all the TV that is streamed in the UK to come from overseas. The discussion and the debates that we have about the future funding formula are going to have to include how we protect, preserve and create great British content. That has to be part of the debate moving forward. Can I tell him about elements? No, I cannot because we have not even begun the discussions yet. What modelling is there? I have been told already there are a number of ways in which we could look at funding the BBC moving forward.

Draft Online Safety Bill Report

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda), who I think illustrated clearly why this Bill matters. I want to joint the chorus of warm congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) and his entire Committee on their remarkable work in producing such an impressive report on what is a very complex Bill. They have done the House a huge favour by suggesting ways in which the Bill could be made more straightforward and more focused on its overall objectives.

The Bill covers unlawful content as well as legal but harmful content, and it is in the latter category that the definitional challenges apply. Of course, we see in that challenge a conflict between specificity and flexibility. The legislation and the regulation that we create need to be specific enough that those subject to it know what they have to do, but flexible enough to keep up with what is a changing online world. The overarching duty of care set out in the initial White Paper was designed to give that adaptability and to encourage proactivity on the part of platforms in identifying and responding to emerging harms, and there is no doubt that that needs refinement.

I think that the Committee’s recommendation that there should be a requirement to have in place proportionate systems and processes for identifying and mitigating reasonably foreseeable risks of harm arising from regulated activity defined under the Bill is largely an elegant way to square that circle and keep some sense of control in this place of what harms we are content for the regulator to act against. However, I do not think that the Committee would claim that this is the last word on the subject, and nor should it be, because there are inherent risks of inflexibility—legislating to change harms is cumbersome and time-consuming.

There is also a risk of inconsistency, even with the Committee’s approach elsewhere. I am thinking of the Committee’s approach to defining content that is harmful to children, which it defines as content or activity that is either specified on the face of the Bill or in regulation, or—this is the crucial bit—where there is a “reasonably foreseeable risk” that it would be likely to cause harm. In other words, there needs to be some flexibility to oblige platforms to deal with harms that are not defined in regulations or in the Bill as they emerge in a fast-changing landscape, and I think that needs to be reflected more broadly too.

[David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes an important point about flexibility. I wonder whether he is familiar with the work of the Epilepsy Society, which has found that people with photo-sensitive epilepsy are being sent flashing images in the hope that that might induce a seizure. Does he feel that that type of harm ought to be incorporated in the definitions in the Bill as well?

[Jeremy Wright]

Sadly, I am familiar with the activity that my hon. Friend describes. Of course, it is quite possible that such activity is unlawful, in which case it may well be covered in that part of the Bill. If it is not, we must ensure that there is sufficient flexibility to cover it elsewhere.

The conflict between flexibility and specificity appears elsewhere too. The Committee is right to say, as was my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), that the categorisation approach to differentiating platforms that present greater harm from those that present lesser harm is too blunt an instrument. We need a more sophisticated approach based on risk profile, as the Committee says—one that recognises that risks can emerge from unexpected places and with which we can see small platforms becoming influential very quickly.

I also think that the Committee is entirely right to seek to change the emphasis of the Bill away from solely content and towards activity and systems too, because ultimately it is the ordering, promoting and manipulation of content that is the root of the problem, and that is what the Bill should seek to address. Transparency will of course be crucial in enabling the regulator to do so.

It is also right to highlight, as the report does, what needs adding to or bolstering in the Bill, whether it be anonymity, the management of end-to-end encryption, misinformation and disinformation, or age assurance and verification, which others have spoken about. There are, as the Committee says, other changes needed to the Bill. The structure at the moment is heavily dependent on risk assessments that platforms themselves conduct. There is no provision at the moment for the regulator to do something about those risk assessments being profoundly inadequate, whether by accident or design, and there clearly needs to be.

We all agree that Ofcom needs adequate sanctions to be taken seriously. I welcome, as the Committee does, the Government’s indication that they will bring forward more quickly individual director liability for information offences—in other words, failures to give Ofcom information about what is going on. We need to recognise that out of that arises the potentially fairly ludicrous situation in which an individual director might be engaging in the most appalling conduct, but so long as they are honest with the regulator about it, they are okay. That cannot be right and that is why I think the Committee is right to identify the need for an additional offence to deal with egregious conduct by directors.

The balance between parliamentary oversight and the operation of ministerial discretion in the Bill is, frankly, in the wrong place. There is too little of the former and too much of the latter. Power for Ministers to amend codes of practice in order to reflect Government policy is a particularly chilling potential infringement on the independence of the regulator. That needs to be repaired.

The final point I want to make is this: when we approach a Bill not just of this complexity but with the groundbreaking nature that my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport described, we need to do so with humility. We may not get everything right first time and there is no monopoly of wisdom. There is no example for us to look to internationally and the rest of the world is looking at us to do this first. I take the point made earlier about delay, but we are still doing it first. We need to get it right and I hope the Government will approach it with an open mind.

Online Anonymity and Anonymous Abuse

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con) [V]]

I want to begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie), not just on securing this debate but on what she said. In this debate there is one central question, which is how we are to keep online anonymity available for those who need and deserve it and yet ensure that it cannot be used as a shield by those who do not. Of course, some will argue that anonymity online is part of freedom of speech, and that the freedom to hold opinions without interference, which is included in article 19 of the universal declaration on human rights, implies a right to anonymity, but I do not think it is that simple.

Human rights are often about a balance of rights. The right to anonymity in what someone says has to be balanced against the right of the people they abuse to speak freely themselves and the need to hold them to account for making their speech less free. These are of course difficult balances to strike, but if we care about everyone’s freedom of speech, we cannot avoid them.

Freedom of speech is not unrestricted in other arenas, and it should not be unrestricted on social media either. That restriction often comes via the criminal law, including online, but there is much we should not tolerate that falls short of criminal behaviour, damaging individuals and damaging us all. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) that in addressing anonymous abuse of an individual, we perhaps should start, counter-intuitively, by looking not at the merits of anonymity, but at the merits of verifiable identity. Whether it is in online banking, shopping or combating deep fakes, it will increasingly help to be able to demonstrate who we are, and if we can establish reliable ways of proving identity, we should be able to choose to interact online only with others whose identity can be verified or who are willing to reveal it. However, anonymous content that damages us all, from disinformation to extremism, is a different problem. Here I think we should consider the disclosure of identity only with judicial sanction, in the same way as other intrusions into privacy such as search warrants or phone tapping, which require the authority of a judge.

Of course, all of this needs much more thought and debate, and the forthcoming online safety Bill should be an opportunity for both. Determining what the duty of care at the heart of the Bill requires online platforms to do, both for those who need the protection of anonymity and for those who need protection from anonymity, is a real challenge, but I think it is now one that we must grasp and do so in the course of this Bill, not put off again.

Online Harms Consultation

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s welcome for the legislation. He raised some important points. On anonymity, we have not taken powers to remove anonymity because it is very important for some people—for example, victims fleeing domestic violence and children who have questions about their sexuality that they do not want their families to know they are exploring. There are many reasons to protect that anonymity.

The hon. Gentleman talks about Ofcom; over the years, we have seen Ofcom rise to the challenge of increased responsibilities and I am confident that it will continue to do so. We will of course look to Ofcom to bring in independent expertise to help it in that process. It will clearly require a step change from Ofcom, but Dame Melanie Dawes and others are very much alert to that.

The hon. Gentleman talks about misinformation and disinformation. There are three things that we have to do to address those. First, we have to rely on trusted sources. We are so fortunate in this country to have well-established newspapers and broadcasters that are committed to public service information. We have seen that through the covid crisis, which is why we have supported them through this period. Secondly, we have to rebut false information. Through the Cabinet Office, we are working 24/7 to do that. Finally, we have to work with the tech companies themselves. For example, the Health Secretary and I have recently secured commitments to remove misinformation and disinformation within 48 hours and, crucially, not to profit from it. To the hon. Gentleman’s central concern, I think these measures really do mark a step change in our approach to tech firms. The old certainties are changing, and we are taking decisive action.

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

I welcome the progress that the Government are making in this area, and my right hon. Friend’s personal commitment and determination to deliver it, but, as he said, there is further progress to be made. That progress will only really be made when we see legislation, which I urge him again to introduce as soon as possible. In the meantime, I understand the Government’s focus on the larger platforms where the greatest harms are likely to be concentrated, but may I urge him, in the design and architecture of the regulatory system that he is putting in place, to ensure that it can deal with smaller platforms that grow fast or that host particularly damaging material, and, of course, that it can deal with the ever-changing nature of the harms themselves?

[Oliver Dowden]

I pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend and other former Culture Secretaries represented in the House, all of whom have played a decisive role in helping to shape this important legislation. My right hon. and learned Friend rightly raises the point about smaller platforms. What we have sought to do with these proposals is to exclude very small enterprises—for example, a cheese retailer that allows its customers to leave comments on its site. Strictly speaking, that is user-generated material, but I think we would all agree that we would not want that to be within scope. However, at the same time, some smaller sites can be used as a back route— for example, for paedophiles to exchange information. We will design the legislation proportionately so that we can upscale the regulation in those sorts of cases.

Online Harms

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises the need to take urgent action to reduce and prevent online harms; and urges the Government to bring forward the Online Harms Bill as soon as possible.

The motion stands in my name and those of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I begin by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for what I hope the House will agree is an important and urgent debate. I am conscious that a great number of colleagues wish to speak and that they have limited time in which to do so, so I will be brief as I can. I know also that there are right hon. and hon. Members who wished to be here to support the motion but could not be. I mention, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), the Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, who is chairing the Committee as we speak.

I hope that today’s debate will largely be about solutions, but perhaps we should begin with the scale of the problem. The term “online harms” covers many things, from child sexual exploitation to the promotion of suicide, hate speech and intimidation, disinformation perpetrated by individuals, groups and even nation states, and many other things. Those problems have increased with the growth of the internet, and they have grown even faster over recent months as the global pandemic has led to us all spending more time online.

Let me offer just two examples. First, between January and April this year, as we were all starting to learn about the covid-19 virus, there were around 80 million interactions on Facebook with websites known to promulgate disinformation on that subject. By contrast, the websites of the World Health Organisation and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention each had around 6 million interactions. Secondly, during roughly the same period, online sex crimes recorded against children were running at more than 100 a day. The online platforms have taken some action to combat the harms I have mentioned, and I welcome that, but it is not enough, as the platforms themselves mostly recognise.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

You may have noticed, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I am ostentatiously wearing purple. I have been missioned to do so because it is World Pancreatic Cancer Day. We have been asked to emphasise it, because raising awareness of that disease is important.

My right hon. and learned Friend is right to highlight the horror of degrading and corrupting pornography. Indeed, the Government have no excuse for not doing more, because the Digital Economy Act 2017 obliges them to do so. Why do we not have age verification, as was promised in that Act and in our manifesto? It is a straightforward measure that the Government could introduce to save lives in the way my right hon. and learned Friend describes.

[Jeremy Wright]

I agree with my right hon. Friend, but I will be careful, Mr Deputy Speaker, in what I say about age verification, because I am conscious that a judicial review case is in progress on that subject. However, I agree that that is something that we could and should do, and not necessarily in direct conjunction with an online harms Bill.

Digital platforms should also recognise that a safer internet is, in the end, good for business. Their business model requires us to spend more and more time online, and we will do that only if we feel safe there. The platforms should recognise that Governments must act in that space, and that people of every country with internet access quite properly expect them to. We have operated for some time on the principle that what is unacceptable offline is unacceptable online. How can it be right that actions and behaviours that cause real harm and would be controlled and restricted in every other environment, whether broadcast media, print media or out on the street, are not restricted at all online?

I accept that freedom of speech online is important, but I cannot accept that the online world is somehow sacred space where regulation has no place regardless of what goes on there. Given the centrality of social media to modern political debate, should we rely on the platforms alone to decide which comments are acceptable and which are unacceptable, especially during election campaigns? I think not, and for me the case for online regulation is clear. However, it must be the right kind of regulation—regulation that gives innovation and invention room to grow, that allows developing enterprises to offer us life-enhancing services and create good jobs, but that requires those enterprises to take proper responsibility for their products and services, and for the consequences of their use. I believe that that balance is to be found in the proposed duty of care for online platforms, as set out in the Government’s White Paper of April last year.

I declare an interest as one of the Ministers who brought forward that White Paper at the time, and I pay tribute to all those in government and beyond, including the talented civil servants at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, who worked so hard to complete it. This duty of care is for all online companies that deal with user-generated content to keep those who use their platforms as safe as they reasonably can.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

We have covered some important information. Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that there needs to be a new social media regulator with the power to audit and impact social media algorithms to ensure that they do not cause harm? Such a regulator would enable that to happen.

[Jeremy Wright]

I agree that we need a regulator and will come on to exactly that point. The hon. Gentleman is entirely right, for reasons that I will outline in just a moment.

I recognise that what I am talking about is not the answer to every question in this area, but it would be a big step towards a safer online world if designed with sufficient ambition and implemented with sufficient determination. The duty of care should ask nothing unreasonable of the digital platforms. It would be unreasonable, for example, to suggest that every example of harmful content reaching a vulnerable user would automatically be a breach of the duty of care. Platforms should be obliged to put in place systems to protect their users that are as effective as they can be, not that achieve the impossible.

However, meeting that duty of care must mean doing more than is being done now. It should mean proactively scanning the horizon for those emerging harms that the platforms are best placed to see and designing mitigation for them, not waiting for terrible cases and news headlines to prompt action retrospectively. The duty of care should mean changing algorithms that prioritise the harmful and the hateful because they keep our attention longer and cause us to see more adverts. When a search engine asked about suicide shows a how-to guide on taking one’s own life long before it shows the number for the Samaritans, that is a design choice. The duty of care needs to require a different design choice to be made. When it comes to factual inquiries, the duty of care should expect the prioritisation of authoritative sources over scurrilous ones.

It is reasonable to expect these things of the online platforms. Doing what is reasonable to keep us safe must surely be the least we expect of those who create the world in which we now spend so much of our time. We should legislate to say so, and we should legislate to make sure that it happens. That means regulation, and as the hon. Gentleman suggests, it means a regulator—one that has the independence, the resources and the personnel to set and investigate our expectations of the online platforms. For the avoidance of doubt, our expectations should be higher than the platforms’ own terms and conditions. However, if the regulator we create is to be taken seriously by these huge multinational companies, it must also have the power to enforce our expectations. That means that it must have teeth and a range of sanctions, including individual director liability and site blocking in extreme cases.

We need an enforceable duty of care for online platforms to begin making the internet a safer place. Here is the good news for the Minister, who I know understands this agenda well. So often, such debates are intended to persuade the Government to change direction, to follow a different policy path. I am not asking the Government to do that, but rather to continue following the policy path they are already on—I just want them to move faster along that path. I am not pretending that it is an easy path. There will be complex and difficult judgments to be made and significant controversy in what will be groundbreaking and challenging legislation, but we have shied away from this challenge for far too long.

The reason for urgency is not only that, while we delay, lives continue to be ruined by online harms, sufficient though that is. It is also because we have a real opportunity and the obligation of global leadership here. The world has looked with interest at the prospectus we have set out on online harms regulation, and it now needs to see us follow through with action so that we can leverage our country’s well-deserved reputation for respecting innovation and the rule of law to set a global standard in a balanced and effective regulatory approach. We can only do that when the Government bring forward the online harms Bill for Parliament to consider and, yes, perhaps even to improve. We owe it to every preyed-upon child, every frightened parent and everyone abused, intimidated or deliberately misled online to act, and to act now.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

There is a three-minute limit on speeches.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

I warmly thank all Members who have contributed to this debate, and congratulate all of them on saying so much in so little time. I hope that we have come together this afternoon to send a clear message about how much support there is across the Chamber for identifying not just the problem of online harms, but also the solutions.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for what he has said this afternoon. I am even more grateful for what I know he is going to say after this debate to his colleagues in government. I do not doubt for a moment his personal commitment to this agenda, but I hope that he will be able to say to others in government that there has probably never been a piece of legislation more eagerly anticipated by everyone, on both sides of this House. Although the Government will not get a blank cheque on this legislation—no Government could and no Government should—they will, I think, get a commitment from all parties to a proper analysis and a proper supporting examination of how we might do this effectively. With that encouragement, I hope that the Minister will make sure that this happens very soon.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House recognises the need to take urgent action to reduce and prevent online harms; and urges the Government to bring forward the Online Harms Bill as soon as possible.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Moving very swiftly on, I am going to suspend the House for two minutes in order to do the necessary—only two minutes, because time is of the essence.

UK Telecommunications

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

The first point is that all that equipment will have been approved by the Huawei cell in GCHQ. In addition, that is why we introduced the ban on Huawei from the core, and we have now set out the path down to zero.

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

It is clear that the latest US sanctions have changed the landscape, so it is reasonable for the Government to change their approach on Huawei. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be naive to believe that the only threat to the UK telecommunications network will come from Huawei equipment, or even solely from China, so the appropriate response is to ensure that the whole network is secure, wherever the threat may come from?

[Oliver Dowden]

As ever, my right hon. and learned Friend, and predecessor, is correct. It is just the reality that telecoms networks will always be vulnerable, particularly to sophisticated hostile state actors, so we are bringing forward a telecoms security Bill to seek to address that. We should not kid ourselves into thinking that there is a panacea and that with one silver bullet we remove the risk by banning Huawei.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

1. What steps his Department is taking to tackle online harms.

[The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Oliver Dowden)]

I know how hard my right hon. and learned Friend worked on online harms during his time as Secretary of State, and I pay tribute to him for the work he did. I can reassure him and all hon. Members that I remain committed to introducing this important Bill, which will enable us to have world-leading regulation that protects users while not imposing excessive burdens on business. We will publish a full Government response to the White Paper later this year and will be ready for the Bill to be introduced later in this Session.

[Jeremy Wright]

I am grateful for what my right hon. Friend has said. Given that we have all been spending more time online recently, especially the most vulnerable among us, he will accept that the case for sensible, balanced regulation of online harms, centred on a duty of care for online platforms, is as strong as ever. I am grateful, too, for what he says about the timetable, but can I urge him to bring forward legislation as soon as possible so that the House can consider it? Also, what action do the Government intend to take in relation to the draft age appropriate design code and when?

[Oliver Dowden]

I can reassure my right hon. and learned Friend that almost as we speak, and on pretty much a daily basis, I am taking the decisions necessary to ensure we bring forward the response to the White Paper and then the Bill itself. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) is seeking to intervene from a sedentary position. I can reassure her and other Members: it will be in this Session, as we have said consistently. On the age appropriate design code, I am taking the necessary steps to lay the code, as required by statute. I recognise concerns raised by businesses and indeed hon. Members, however, which is why I have asked the Information Commissioner’s Office to produce an assessment of its economic impact, and I will be including frequently asked questions for the news media sector in the code’s explanatory memorandum when I lay it.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

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

[Dr Fox]

I could not agree more. This decision comes down to the wider issue of our values and what our world view is. This decision will demonstrate that to countries around the world. What China wants is to make the world a more permissive place for autocratic regimes. What we need to do is to make the world a more permissive place for those who believe in freedom, democracy and the rule of law. Our national security is intrinsic to protecting those values. The decision we take will say more than just what we intend to do for the 5G network and the internet of things; it will say something about what Britain is and intends to be in the years ahead, and how we intend to shape the world around us.

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. May I take him back a little in his speech? I agree entirely that it is not a good argument for the inclusion of Huawei that not to do so would cost us a little more or take us a little longer, but does he accept that if we pursue our 5G network with other suppliers, it is highly likely that those suppliers will also use Chinese equipment? Therefore, whatever we do with Huawei, it is important to strengthen our entire telecoms supply chain network against all types of threat.

[Dr Fox]

I entirely agree with my right hon. and learned Friend, and I am grateful to him for raising that point. When I was practising medicine—or, as my wife would say, “When you had a proper job”—I was never inclined to do the cheapest or the fastest treatment. It was always the best treatment and that is what we have to apply here. This is a much more important issue. If we have to wait a little longer and pay a little more for the security of this country, then we should do just that.

We have a choice in politics and it is fairly binary: at whatever level and on whatever issue, we either choose to shape the world around us or we will be shaped by the world around us. I believe that the values we have in this House—certainly, the values we have as a party—and the conventions and traditions of this country are not something gathering dust on a shelf. They are a route map to the future. We have to believe in those values and be willing to defend them.

I hope the Secretary of State can give us enough concessions today to allow him to go away and think again about these issues. If he does not, I am afraid the Government will face an embarrassing vote today. As someone who is a former Secretary of State for Defence who sat on the National Security Council, it would give me no pleasure to vote against a Conservative Government because I believed they were undermining our national security. I urge the Secretary of State to go away and think about these issues, and bring them back in a way that provides satisfaction that our national security will not be sold for any reason whatever.

Huawei and 5G

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) on securing this debate. I will use my four minutes to discuss where I agree with the consensus that has emerged in this debate, and where I respectfully disagree.

I agree that 5G is hugely important, for the reasons that have already been given. Two things follow from that: first, security is absolutely paramount in the 5G network, but secondly, subject to our security requirements we should have the best equipment possible. This debate cannot ignore the fact that a great many people in the telecoms industry believe that Huawei equipment is not simply cheaper than its competitors, but better. It therefore seems to me that if our security requirements can be met, it is not logical to entirely exclude Huawei equipment.

This debate has quite sensibly focused on the question of security, but when we are considering the security of the network, it does not seem sensible to focus entirely on Huawei: we have to think about the security of the entire network. These are complex and interdependent networks that must be secure from threats, wherever those threats come from. That is why the telecoms supply chain review that began while I was in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is the right way to approach this issue, and the general principles that it has set out are sound. I am not going to run through all of those principles, although my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) has mentioned some of the telecoms security requirements we should have. However, it is worth saying that diversity, in terms of the number of suppliers in the system, is in itself a security advantage that we should not dispense with unless we need to.

[Bob Seely]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that the diversity argument is one of many flawed arguments, because Huawei is undermining diversity? Through Huawei and ZTE, the Chinese state is trying to build up other states’ dependency on it to provide advanced communications, so by getting Huawei in, we are undermining diversity in the market.

[Jeremy Wright]

I agree with my hon. Friend that it is sensible to make sure we do not undermine diversity through our own actions. However, as a matter of principle, taking suppliers out of the system does not assist diversity. The points he has made are substantially about security, and I agree that this debate must focus on that question. Whether we use market caps or bring along other suppliers in the market, diversity is a legitimate security objective, just as it is a legitimate economic objective. However, I am afraid that we do not have the luxury of inventing a domestic contributor to this market in a short space of time, so we have to deal with the market as it is.

There is a good reason why we focus on the security of the system as a whole and not on one supplier. If we are worried about China, as it is perfectly right for us to be, it is worth keeping in mind the fact that many of the competitor suppliers referred to in this debate use Chinese components in their equipment, or assemble their equipment in China. It is therefore important to recognise China’s potential to intervene.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Given that we are about to spend £100 billion on a train line, would it not be sensible to invest some of that money in our own infrastructure if we are so concerned about Chinese suppliers?

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend really should not get me started on HS2; we do not have time.

We should not just be worried about Huawei or about China, but about the security of the entire telecoms infrastructure. However, if we are going to talk about Huawei, let us not forget first of all that Huawei is already in the system. Sometimes these debates are conducted as though it were going to come in for the first time, but it is here already, managed differently to other suppliers. Secondly and most importantly, let us not disregard the advice of our highly respected intelligence agencies, which have said that the inclusion of Huawei’s equipment is consistent with our security requirements. I have had the privilege of working with those agencies, as I know many other Members present have. They are world class, and it is important that we do not disregard what they say.