UK Telecommunications

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the risk of that kind of disruption and blackouts. That was one of the reasons that led us to the timetable that we have set out. Put bluntly, the shorter the timetable for the removal, the higher the risk of that happening, but I can tell the hon. Lady, her constituents and people up and down the country that this risk will not materialise in relation to the proposals that we have outlined today.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and his willingness to take tough decisions, particularly when, as the China Research Group believes, they are in the national interest. With the EU President recently having had to take Beijing to task over its cyber-attacks on EU hospitals treating patients for coronavirus, does this action from the Government not send the message loud and clear to the Chinese state that our future relationship must be based on trust, and our trade on a fair and level playing field?

[Oliver Dowden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the issue of cyber-attacks. I caution, though, that cyber-attacks will not be prevented by removing Huawei equipment from the system. There are vulnerabilities across the network, and indeed one reason that we are introducing the telecoms security Bill is to start to address some of those. We have seen—it is in the public domain—that hostile Russian actors, for example, have already been able to attack our networks. With regard to the wider position on China, we need to have a full and frank relationship with China, and we have done that, but this announcement is principally about the US sanctions.