UK Telecommunications

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

As I set out in my statement, we have been very clear that the relationship between any private business and a Government or state operator has been at the centre of the analysis that we and that the National Cyber Security Centre have conducted. Based on the distinction between the centre or core and the periphery or edge, the different restrictions that can be made on access, and the 35% cap on accessing the periphery, I am confident that we can provide my right hon. Friend with precisely the reassurance that he asks for.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I welcome the statement and, as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee in the last Parliament, I can say that I have seen nothing that means that this decision will compromise our Five Eyes relationship, or that the potential risk of including Huawei in the 5G network cannot be mitigated. The Foreign Secretary refers to market failure; this is not market failure. The Chinese Government, through Huawei, have adopted a deliberate policy of dominating the market by billions of pounds of investment in R&D and the acquisition of related activities. Can the Foreign Secretary outline how much the Government are proposing to put into R&D in this sector, and will there be a ban on Chinese companies acquiring UK companies that are developing technologies in the sector?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his positive remarks. We are making sure that we produce legislation as soon as possible that can deal with the various enforcement mechanisms and requirements he mentions. He referred to Huawei and the Chinese investment; the critical question for us is what we do, so we are taking the measures now in relation to guidance, and as soon as is practical in relation to legislation. There is a medium-term piece of work that we need to do to look at the health of the telecoms market and make sure that, both in terms of the domestic measures we take—legislative, investment and otherwise—and the international partnerships that we nurture, we do not end up in that situation again with any other critical piece of telecoms, let alone wider national, infrastructure.