UK Telecommunications Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
John Redwood
Main Page: John Redwood (Conservative - Wokingham)Department Debates - View all John Redwood's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Oliver Dowden
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the D10 alliance, which was proposed not by the UK Government but, I believe, by the Atlantic Forum. We are working with all the D10 countries on this, and with Japan, South Korea and others, where we have a lot of interest in that.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
There could be offsets to the delay and cost if, as a result of this, we design and manufacture many more of the components we need here at home. What exactly can the Government do to make that more likely to create jobs and technology?
Oliver Dowden
My right hon. Friend is right to raise the point, which is the opportunity created by open RAN technology. It will take a very long time, were the UK minded to do so, to create a new mobile vendor like Ericsson, Nokia or indeed Huawei, but with open RAN we can get UK technologies into the provision of telecoms infrastructure, and that can sit alongside contributions from other like-minded countries around the world. That is how we will create jobs and provide a long-lasting solution.