UK Telecommunications

Ronnie Cowan Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I am not quite sure what clandestine services my hon. Friend is referring to, but I can reassure him that there is nothing further than the investment that would be accepted, as laid out in the statement I have made.

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

After 35 years of working in IT and writing and reading many tenders for telecommunications systems, I would never in my life consider a vendor that I judged to be high risk. Why are the Government doing this? Does the Secretary of State really think that the resilience and integrity of UK telecoms is safe? He has said in his statement that

“risk cannot be eliminated in telecoms”,

but we could at least try to mitigate it.

[Dominic Raab]

That is precisely what I set out in my statement.