Friendly Wifi Certification

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I will take the noble Lord’s lead in asking a serious question. Having a fast and reliable wifi service in Parliament is vital for us to carry out our parliamentary duties but also for visitors in particular to have a safe and productive experience when they visit Parliament. Can the Senior Deputy Speaker reassure the House that our systems are entirely secure? When I was sanctioned by the Russian Government, I was grateful for the proactive work and advice on cybersecurity from the Parliamentary Digital Service and Parliamentary Security Department. In this heightened time of cyberattacks, can the Senior Deputy Speaker assure us that our systems have both entirely robust mechanisms and contingency arrangements for the very valid worries of serious cyberattacks from Russia and many other countries like it?

[The Senior Deputy Speaker]

The noble Lord raises another very important issue. Parliament already has extremely strong cyber defences beyond filtering and blocking technology. Parliament is clearly a high-profile target that is under cyberattack every minute of the day, and our specialised cyber defences protect against these. I should also say that the filtering software in place to ensure safe wifi across Parliament categorises new content continuously as it comes online to ensure ongoing protection.