Telecommunications (Security) Bill (First sitting)

Sara Britcliffe Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 14th January 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Lovely. I am now in the hands of Members. I am very happy to give preference to Members who did not ask a question in the previous session. First out of the blocks is Sara Britcliffe.

[Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)]

Q Thank you, Chair. It is just a quick one. What are the most pressing threats facing public telecoms networks, and how does this Bill address them?

Howard Watson: I note that some of this was answered by my colleagues earlier. Threats to the network include physical access. We all saw earlier this year a lot of attacks on our physical infrastructure, which were highly regrettable. I mean by that the setting alight of some of our infrastructure. We also faced logical threats, such as malware implants, DDoS attacks and what are called advanced persistent threats, which is an actor embedding themself into parts of the environment, staying hidden for a while and potentially collecting credentials—think of the SolarWinds hack that is in the news at the moment.

We take all those threats extremely seriously at BT. For as long as we have operated, we have worked very closely with all aspects of Government, and in particular with the National Cyber Security Centre. We take a sort of defence in depth approach. We have a red team who are ethically hacking us, and we are part of the TBEST scheme.

We think that the UK has a good track record here, but we also welcome the strengthening of that in the Bill. We think that some of the specific items about protecting even more against potential insider threat, looking hard at the vendors we use in the supply chain and having specific rigour about that, and the reporting mechanisms and requirements in the Bill, specifically around telecoms security requirements, will enhance that for all operators in the UK.

Alex Towers: I do not have much to add to that, except to say that, as Howard says, lots of the attention in the debate in the run-up to this Bill has been focused on a small number of very specific, clearly high-risk vendors. It is right that we take steps to protect ourselves around them, but just as important in the Bill will be the telecoms security requirements that stretch well beyond those specific vendors into all manner of aspects in which operators run their networks. Putting those two things together will be important.

[The Chair]

Thank you. The running order is Dean Russell, Miriam Cates, Kevan Jones, Christian Matheson and Chi Onwurah.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill (Seventh sitting)

Sara Britcliffe Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th January 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Chi Onwurah]

I beg to move amendment 15, in clause 14, page 21, line 28, leave out from beginning to end of line 30 and insert—

“(3) The reports must be published not more than 12 months apart for the first 5 years, then not more than 5 years apart.

(4) The first report must be published within the period of 12 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.”.

This amendment requires the Secretary of State to report on the impact and effectiveness of clauses 1 to 13 every year for the first five years after the Act is passed, and then every five years following.

The amendment reflects another of our key concerns about the Bill, which is the level and extent of appropriate scrutiny for such broad and sweeping powers. It seeks to ensure appropriate scrutiny. Clause 14 requires the Secretary of State to review the impact and effectiveness of clauses 1 to 13 at least every five years. Our amendment would require the report to be published every year for the first five years after the legislation is passed, and then up to every five years after that.

As we have said, the Bill gives the Secretary of State and Ofcom sweeping powers. We want to ensure both that they are proportionate and that there is accountability. As we have previously emphasised, we are sure that the Minister and the Secretary of State are inclined to exercise the powers in a proportionate and accountable way, but they will not be in their posts forever, and perhaps not for the entire first five years of the legislation’s operation, so it is important that the Bill requires that Parliament be able to scrutinise its effectiveness, as that is so important to our national security. In that sense, this amendment follows amendments 5, 9 and 10 with respect to the requirement for appropriate oversight and accountability.

I emphasise—I am sure that you will understand, Mr Hollobone—that in some ways we are here because of a lack of effective parliamentary scrutiny of the presence and growth of high-risk vendors in our networks. It was only when Parliament became aware of and was able to give its full-throated input on concerns about the dominance of high-risk vendors in our telecommunications market that the Government took action. We do not want to be in the position of finding again that there has been a dramatic change in the security of our networks without appropriate scrutiny.

Clause 14 states that the Secretary of State must

“carry out reviews of…impact and effectiveness”

and that the report must be laid before Parliament for parliamentary scrutiny. However, we are to wait up to five years before it will be made possible to give parliamentary scrutiny to a Bill that is so important to national security, as both the Minister and the Secretary of State, and indeed the security services, have emphasised. We are not to review its effectiveness for five years.

[Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)]

Does not the clause state that the period is up to five years? The review could be done during that period; it would not have to be at the five-year mark every time.

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The clause enables the Minister or Secretary of State to choose to lay a report more frequently. Again, I do not want to impute anything against the Minister or the Secretary of State, but given the importance of the subject and of parliamentary review, why not ensure that it is more frequent?

I am sure that the hon. Lady will agree that Parliament has many things to consider, and so does the Secretary of State. There is competition for parliamentary time, particularly in a pandemic and in view of the challenges that we shall face in the next few years. How can I put this? We have concerns that the priority may slip in the face of, for example, economic challenges, investment challenges and recovery challenges. We want to be sure what is happening. We are the party of national security and we want to ensure that, in this context, national security is brought to Parliament to be debated, discussed and reviewed at least every year.