Domestic Infrastructure: Chinese Ownership

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, we welcome Chinese inward investment into the civil nuclear projects in the UK, as the noble Lord mentions, subject to our robust legal, regulatory and national security requirements. We have the most robust and stringent requirements. My advice is that the project at Hinkley so far meets all the necessary requirements that the noble Lord referred to.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, are we working on our own in responding to the Chinese threat, or are we working with others? Would it not be sensible not only to work with our other Five Eyes colleagues but also to work with our European partners? If we have to find and develop alternative technology for some of these critical projects, clearly it might be much more sensible to work closely with other friendly governments.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Of course we should work closely with our allies, but it is just worth pointing out that some of our allies have a different legal framework. Australia, for example, has a law saying that telecom operators cannot procure equipment from a company that has extraterritorial jurisdiction. That rules out Chinese companies and many others. We do not have quite that same approach, but, of course, we learn from experience, from Australia, New Zealand, the United States and our other allies.