UK Undersea Infrastructure: Hostile Activity

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord West of Spithead]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the risk to the UK’s undersea cables, interconnectors and pipelines from hostile activity.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government take the security and resilience of undersea infrastructure, including cables, interconnectors and pipelines, very seriously. These are critical to our national infrastructure and we monitor the full range of threats and risks, including supply chains and repair arrangements. As the House would expect, the details of any specific assessment of risk from hostile states would be held at high classification for national security reasons.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the actions and statements of President Putin would seem to indicate that he already considers he is at war with this country and the West, if you just look at the raft of things he has done. There is no doubt that the Soviet Union, when it existed, was very interested in what was going on under the sea—I was very involved in countering that—and Russia today is probably even more interested in it. Just to give an idea of the costs, if those cables stopped working, £7.4 trillion-worth of financial activity each day would be cut, 25% of our electricity would go, and so on. We put in place the National Maritime Information Centre in about 2010 and we needed the Joint Maritime Security Centre alongside it, because we said firmly that we had to take threats to our territorial seas and exclusive economic zone very seriously. They are now in place, which is good, but they need to be reinforced—and the departments involved need to fully man them—because otherwise we will not be able to counter what is a very real and present threat, which could cause major damage to our nation.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I in no way disagree with the noble Lord’s final conclusion. It is recognised across government, which is why a number of government departments have a role to play in protecting that critical national infrastructure. We certainly regard these installations as essential to our national infrastructure and monitor a variety of risks that they face. The noble Lord will understand that these subsea cables are predominantly owned and operated privately, but key departments work closely with their owners. Supporting that is the national risk register, the National Protective Security Authority and the National Cyber Security Centre. There is a comprehensive framework to support the private owners and operators of these cables, but the MoD has and discharges a critical role in monitoring threat.