Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what progress has been made on the removal of Huawei from the UK’s (a) fixed and (b) mobile networks; what assessment he has made of the effect of the removal of Huawei on the timescale of the 5G rollout; what estimate he has made of the cost of that removal to the UK’s telecommunication networks providers to date; and what recent estimate he has made of total cost of that removal of Huawei for UK businesses.

Over the course of 2020, the Government made a set of announcements regarding public telecommunications providers’ use of goods and services provided by Huawei.

This included advice that providers should stop procuring 5G equipment from Huawei after December 2020; stop installing Huawei equipment in 5G networks from September 2021;

remove Huawei equipment from the core of all networks by January 2023; reduce Huawei equipment to 35% of their 5G and full fibre networks by January 2023; and remove Huawei equipment from the 5G network by 2027.

Telecoms providers continue to reassure Ministers on their progress and response to the advice in their regular meetings.

As the Secretary of State set out in his statement to the House on 14 July 2020, we estimate that implementation of the advice will mean a cumulative delay to 5G rollout of two to three years and costs of up to two billion pounds.

Once the Telecommunications (Security) Bill has been enacted, and subject to consultation in accordance with the Bill’s provisions, the Government will be empowered to give this advice legal effect.