UK Telecommunications

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes]

I thank the noble Lord very much indeed for his support. He is of course right that Ministers must take the decision with the advice of experts and based on the circumstances as we face them. The Prime Minister and the whole council were very clear about the need for urgent work on a diversification strategy with companies in the United Kingdom, but also, of course, with the technology expertise of our allies, including the United States. I very much hope that we can progress those discussions very speedily.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, the Huawei cybersecurity evaluation oversight board says:

“The Oversight Board continues to be able to provide only limited assurance that the long-term security risks can be managed in the Huawei equipment currently deployed in the UK”.


It goes on to say that

“it will be difficult to appropriately risk-manage future products in the context of UK deployments, until the underlying defects in Huawei’s software engineering and cyber security processes are remediated … At present, the Oversight Board has not yet seen anything to give it confidence in Huawei’s capacity to successfully complete the elements of its transformation programme”.

Why can the Government not wait until the oversight board has seen and is content with Huawei’s transformation programme rather than going into this rather risky decision today?

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes]

That is because the evidence of the oversight board—it is extremely vital to our relationship with Huawei, a world-leading structure to have over it, and it provided the evidence that our services provided to the National Security Council—was not the only evidence that the National Security Council received that gave us the reassurances to make this decision today. Some of it cannot be discussed in public. The board will absolutely continue to operate and to work with Huawei to improve standards.