Undersea Cables

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am speechless. The reason why DCMS is answering this Question is that we are responsible for co-ordinating the resilience of the telecoms sector in the UK. Telecoms is one of the UK’s 13 critical sectors and we are in close touch with other departments, particularly the Home Office, which is responsible for GCHQ, and the Ministry of Defence. I am not the only Minister who has answered on this; in December my noble friend Lord Howe answered a similar Question.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, is it also not worth remembering that we are building up a substantial system of undersea electricity cables as well—interconnectors with other countries, up to about 15 gigawatts, which are a major part of our daily supply of power? This issue therefore becomes doubly or trebly important when it comes to the security of that kind of undersea cable as well.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

There are many things on the seabed, not only electricity and fibre-optic cables but pipelines as well. The National Security Council looks at all these threats to our infrastructure, and we advise all the parts of the infrastructure estate regularly and keep an eye on all of it.