Security of Government Devices

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I always resist commenting on individual cases. Of course, that comment does not necessarily take account of the steps we have made on briefing Ministers, including new Ministers, on security matters. The evolution of social media has been beneficial in many ways; I am sure that noble Lords use it for non-security matters, and we believe that that is perfectly all right on people’s private phones as a complement to the use of government phones for government business. We are very clear that, where people use private phones for government business because they cannot do anything else, it is important that substantive government exchanges are passed on to the private office or elsewhere, so that they are added to the public record. You have to have a balance in this system; we have to have rules which make sense and respect security but are also workable.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the Statement; I was caught up with the Intelligence and Security Committee, where, of course, we have to hand our mobile phones in because we all know how dangerous mobiles are. I know from my past experience in this arena that, despite many lessons to people, people up to the level of Prime Minister make major errors in using private phones for material that they should not. Does the Minister not agree that we have to look at private phones as well as government phones to ensure that we have the right security that we ought to have? Whenever you speak on a mobile phone, you can guarantee that someone is trying to listen to it.