UK Telecommunications Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Stephen Timms
Main Page: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)Department Debates - View all Stephen Timms's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(4 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Oliver Dowden
Obviously, the most blunt way of doing that is to ban the flow from the beginning of the year and then address the stock to 2027. In advance of that, we will also be imposing much tougher conditions on all of the mobile network operators through the telecoms security Bill. Essentially, that will shift the balance from the Communications Act 2003, whereby it was up to the mobile network operators to determine how best to ensure security, to this legislation that will involve the Government setting out those requirements, and they will address those sort of issues.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
Will the Minister confirm that the problem is not with Huawei’s hardware, but with its software? As part of his open RAN solution, might an alternative be to mandate the use of open-source software rather than proprietary software in the 5G network?
Oliver Dowden
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to make the point about open-source software, and we will certainly encourage that to happen. That greater transparency will help as we roll out the open RAN networks. It is the case that the Huawei evaluation centre in GCHQ does look at both hardware and software issues.