Telecoms Supply Chain Review

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Gentleman has asked a number of questions; let me try to deal with as many of them as I can.

On the hon. Gentleman’s last point about Chinese involvement in the wider economy, he will recognise that there is a balance to be struck between welcoming inward investment into our economy, which we do, and wanting to be confident that our security requirements are met. In relation to ZTE, he may know that the Government’s judgment, based on advice from the National Cyber Security Centre, is that ZTE should not have engagement particularly in the 5G communications network, which is the subject of this review and this statement.

On the hon. Gentleman’s earlier points, he describes what I am announcing as prevarication. I hope that I have been straightforward in accepting that there is a delay, and I have explained the reasons for it in relation to Huawei. I do not believe that it would be sensible, responsible or helpful to anyone, including the telecoms industry, were I to give a partial decision today when I am not in a position to give a complete decision. It follows from that that when the decision comes to be made, there will be a new Prime Minister in office—that is now a little less than 48 hours away—so it is inevitable that that will be the case.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned a legal challenge. As you would expect me to say, Mr Speaker, from a former life I am always aware of the possibility of legal challenge. In my experience, it is always a possibility, but the way that we can best insulate against it is to reach sensible decisions based on defensible criteria. Again, the best way to do that is to make sure that we have all the information that we need before we make a decision of this kind. That is precisely what the Government propose to do.

It is, of course, a possibility—and remains so—that the Government may decide that an outright ban on Huawei equipment in the 5G network is the appropriate course of action. All I say today is that we are not yet in a position to make a comprehensive decision about that. As soon as we are, we will, but the hon. Gentleman has my assurance—as I indicated to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson)—that the decision that we take will be, first and foremost, in the interests of the United Kingdom, and that security interests and our national security equities will be the most important consideration in that.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) suggests that the actions that we are taking are behind the curve internationally. That is not so. If we produce telecoms security requirements in the way that we propose, they will be world-leading measures, and we should be proud of that. We will legislate for them as soon as we are able to do so.

The hon. Gentleman asked for more detail about what diversification of the supply chain might involve. Let me give him some possible examples. We are talking about measures such as improved access to spectrum and the promotion of new infrastructure models. He will be aware of the £200 million 5G test beds and trials programme, which we believe will support new investment, and we can and should pursue greater interoperability for equipment from different suppliers, including by requiring this in technical standards. Of course, the Government can use their buying power to promote a diverse supplier base. We should do all those things in addition to seeking to invite existing, established suppliers to come into the UK market, where they are not already present.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does this mean a delay in the roll-out of 5G to constituents in Wokingham and elsewhere? If so, how long a delay are we talking about?

[Jeremy Wright]

The commercial decisions that mobile network operators are making now about what equipment to buy are part of a continuing process. All those mobile network operators will need to consider carefully the position I have outlined today and make the appropriate commercial judgments, but we are seeking to move as quickly as we reasonably can to give them the clarity they need to continue making those investments.

Centenary of the Armistice

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

A hundred years ago on Sunday, a deafening silence broke out over the vast battlefields of Europe. Then, as now, there must have been very mixed emotions. There would have been that great sense of loss and remorse that so many people had been slaughtered, and so many people maimed and incapacitated. I guess that for those in the trenches there was apprehension. Was this for real? Could they trust the enemy? Would this truce hold? Could they stumble out of those muddy dungeons that had been their safe houses over all those long weeks and months of toil into a more open and free world where they could behave more normally? But they were, and we are, also permitted some joy that at last this murderous, bestial war was over. After four years of mass industrial slaughter, with millions of individual tragedies between the men and the families of the different combative nations, at last the slaughter was over. There was a chance to build something better.

When I lay a wreath in the morning in Burghfield and in the afternoon in Wokingham, I will be very conscious of two things. I will be conscious that there are war memorials in every other village and town in my constituency that time does not permit me to visit that day. As I look up at those lists of names on those two war memorials, I will be very conscious of how long those lists are and of how many brothers are together on the same list, with a double or treble tragedy for the family. That scale of loss is difficult to comprehend and to wrestle with.

It reminds me of my two grandfathers. As is the case with most of us, our great grandfathers or our grandfathers were the survivors. They were young men who fought as young men and then tried to build a more normal life when they got back from the trenches. They had not had time to have girlfriends and to marry and produce children before they went off to war. My two grandfathers, like many others, went at the earliest possible opportunity, or may even have misled those involved about their age so keen were they to volunteer. Both fought on the western front. One was badly injured, but, fortunately, recovered. I wanted to know from them, as a boy and as a teenager, more about these terrible events. Like many of their generation who had been through the war, they did not really want to share it with us. It was obviously so awful. They did not seek my praise and they did not seek my sympathy. They wanted to shield me from it. I wanted to know more about it, but I think that they took that view because it was so awful.

We have heard many moving remarks today, particularly about those who died, but let us think about those who survived. Let us think about what it must have been like to have four years of no normal life—as someone who was 17, 18, 19, 20 or whatever they were—where they had no normal social life and no normal family life apart from very rushed periods of leave, when they could not pursue their normal sports and leisure pursuits because space would not allow it, when they had no privacy, and when they had very repetitious food. The dreadful things they fought are obvious—the shells, the bombs, the rifle bullets, the snipers and the machine guns. You can just about imagine how awful it must have been to have that fear that you were going to be asked to advance on barbed wire and machine guns, knowing that you had very little chance of surviving, but what about the boredom? What about the relentless discipline and the inability to know how to fill the time while you were worrying about what was going to happen next? All of those things must have been dreadful. So this is what I think we need to do. We owe it to them, to all those who directed the war, and to all those in this Parliament who sent our army to war—time does not permit this afternoon—to have a proper analysis and discussion about how we can do better in future. I am no pacifist. I think we have to arm ourselves well to protect ourselves and to preserve the peace. We have fought too many wars and, too often, we sent our Army into wars where they had limited chances of winning. We did not have a diplomatic and political strategy to follow the war. There is no use in winning a war, unless we win the peace as well. We know that the sequel to the first world war is the second world war—the tragedy that it all had to be done again on an even vaster scale with even bigger munitions and more terrifying bombs, eventually ending with the explosion of two atomic bombs to bring it to a very sad conclusion.

We need to ask ourselves how we can make sure that diplomacy and politics does not let people down so much again. How was it part of our strategy that, twice, this Parliament sent small highly professional British Armies on to the continent to fight a war against a far bigger, better armed foe when they had no chance of winning because they had too little resource, the wrong weapons and the wrong tactics? In the first world war, it took four years to recruit a mighty citizens’ army, to invent a lot of new weapons and to develop new tactics during the war. We were sadly unprepared. We asked them to do too much and it is amazing what they did.

Data Protection Bill [Lords]

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I think it is very important that the elected House, having considered the question and in supporting a manifesto commitment of the party in government, should have its say. That is absolutely right. It is a very important constitutional argument, but I am also making an argument of substance. The approach that we are proposing is the right one—that we do not have statutory regulation of the process, but that we in this House can debate a report on what is happening in the press and the self-regulation of it. I think that is the best way to take this question forward.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I fully support what the Secretary of State is trying to do. Does he see a rather worrying undemocratic tendency in the other place—it does not like the result of referendums, the EU withdrawal Bill, which was a manifesto Bill, or this manifesto Bill, and now it wants to regulate the press because the press point out the errors of its ways?

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Miliband]

I have two answers to that. First, this has been tested, and there were no fines, no systematic investigations and no equivalent front-page corrections. Secondly, there is no substitute for a systematic look at these issues and for asking why that culture was allowed to exist and why in certain cases it is still allowed to exist.

Conservative Members rightly express concern about the freedom of the press, and they must vote in the way that they think is right, but this is not about the freedom of the press. The National Union of Journalists, which after all represents journalists, states:

“Not allowing Leveson 2 is bad for journalism and bad for the public”.

The NUJ’s concern is that the ongoing actions of the minority are undermining the brilliant journalism that we have in this country. It therefore believes that it would be better for our trust in the press if this inquiry were to go ahead.

[John Redwood]

But does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the media landscape has been transformed out of all recognition in recent years by social media and the internet, and that further investigation into this history will not illuminate the modern system at all or help us to deal with the difficult questions of fairness between the traditional media and the new media?

[Edward Miliband]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. This is why social media and fake news are at the heart of the terms of reference recommended by Sir Brian and are included in what has come back from the other place. I hope, on the basis of his intervention, that we might have his support for this process, because I see no other vehicle that could achieve what he has just said he wants to achieve.

Data Protection Bill [Lords]

John Redwood Excerpts

Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We debated this at length on Thursday and discussed the fact that it is vital that we look to what is needed for the media now, to ensure that instead of having a set of proposals that were designed several years ago and that would lead to any claimant being able to claim costs no matter the merits of their case, we have measures that enable our press to be sustainable for the future.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I support the Secretary of State in proposing that these amendments be removed. Like many in this place, I have been on the wrong end of fake news and misrepresentation many times, so I do not do so out of personal interest. I think there is a wider public interest: a free press is an extremely important part of a democracy. The press will not always get it right, but we need to be very careful about the amendments from the Lords.

[Matt Hancock]

I wholeheartedly agree with my right hon. Friend.

This Bill is an essential piece of legislation that makes the UK’s data laws among the most effective in the world. This House must never shy away from supporting new technology. The Electric Lighting Act 1882 was considered so important that the House sat on a Saturday to get it through. I hope that will not be necessary this time, but I do hope that the House will adopt similar enthusiasm in backing this Bill. Doing so would support our entrepreneurs in harnessing the value of data, while giving citizens confidence when they go online.

I was pleased a few weeks ago that the Opposition Front-Bench teams in the other place agreed that the Bill was a positive and necessary step. I hope the whole House will agree tonight, and I commend this Bill to the House.