Huawei

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

To pick up on the noble Lord’s first point, I do not place a huge amount of importance on the Chinese law that he referred to, which requires companies to co-operate with the Government. If anyone thought beforehand that that law did not exist, they were unwise. On his point about security and the leak, I can only re-emphasise that when security matters are discussed at government level, they should be kept confidential. There is an assessment of that going on at No. 10 at the moment, but I have no details of it because it has not been completed.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that he is sounding much more hesitant and uncertain of himself than is normal? Is that because he is in fact one of those who are concerned that a company under the control of the Chinese Government will have a very large degree of control over our most sensitive communications? It really is no good that some Ministers are alleged to have said, according to the newspapers, that this will be about only the antennae. It occurs to me that all the important information goes through the antennae, does it not?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I assure the House that I do not feel certain about many things. But seriously, my noble friend has a point. However, one should not be led into a false sense of reassurance by saying we should ban one particular company. There are really only about three main suppliers of this 5G equipment: Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei. Both Nokia and Ericsson either have their components assembled in or buy components from China. We must be very careful about trying to give a false sense of reassurance by banning just one company or another.