UK Telecommunications

Debate between Peter Grant and Oliver Dowden

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the issue of cyber-attacks. I caution, though, that cyber-attacks will not be prevented by removing Huawei equipment from the system. There are vulnerabilities across the network, and indeed one reason that we are introducing the telecoms security Bill is to start to address some of those. We have seen—it is in the public domain—that hostile Russian actors, for example, have already been able to attack our networks. With regard to the wider position on China, we need to have a full and frank relationship with China, and we have done that, but this announcement is principally about the US sanctions.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]]

No matter how hard the Secretary of State tries to disguise it, this is a humiliating U-turn by a Government being forced to admit that they got it wrong in January. What assessment has been made of the additional damage to the economy, the additional cost to public finances in the UK, and the additional cost to devolved nations of the UK, of this Government taking the decision today that everyone knows they should have taken six months ago?

[Oliver Dowden]

I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that he cannot simultaneously urge us to take a faster course, which the SNP did previously, and attack us for the consequence of that in terms of cost. One thing leads to the other.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Peter Grant and Oliver Dowden

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

No, it is not about rolling back the frontiers of the state. The points that the hon. Lady has raised are addressed by our introduction of universal credit, which gives people who are in work a progressive route out of poverty by helping them, as they earn more, not to have all their benefits removed. Moreover, by introducing a national living wage, we are ensuring that everyone who is in work and has a low income will be given a pay rise.

Faced with the current problem, a Government might be tempted simply to salami slice benefits across the board. However, this Government have set out a coherent vision of welfare, which has a number of elements. First, if we are to move from a low wage, high tax, high welfare economy to a higher wage, lower tax, low welfare economy, we must deal with the tax problem. The last Government, with their coalition partners, set about massively increasing the amount of money people could earn without paying tax. We are continuing that agenda, so that as people earn more they keep more

Secondly, we have grasped the problem of people who are in work but do not earn a sufficiently large wage, which is why, for the first time, we are able to increase the minimum wage significantly. Our increase is far greater than any increases that were made by the Labour party when it was in power.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his honesty. Having claimed, as his colleagues have claimed, that this is a living wage, he himself has now used the phrase “national minimum wage”. Is it not the case that all the Government are doing is increasing the minimum wage without making it enough for full-time workers to live on?

[Oliver Dowden]

I do not accept that. I hope that Members will forgive my slip of the tongue. The increase in the current minimum wage, which is less than £7 an hour, to a minimum wage of well over £9 an hour by the end of this Parliament is huge. It is not in line with the standard increase in the minimum wage. This is a step change that reflects the introduction of a national—