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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to with reference to his oral statement of 14 July 2020 on UK Telecommunications, Official Report, column 678, what assessment he has made of the effect on the UK (a) economy and (b) manufacturing industry of US sanctions on Huawei.

The Secretary of State set out in his statement of 14 July on ‘UK Telecommunications’ that removing Huawei equipment from the UK’s 5G networks could cost up to £2 billion to industry and delay rollout of 5G by 2-3 years.

This figure is an estimate of the additional costs to operators of removing Huawei equipment from their 5G networks. These costs will vary across the different mobile operators. The process for complying with the Government’s decision will include commercial decisions that are for the mobile operators to make.

The security and resilience of 5G rollout is not just in the national security interests of the UK. The UK’s economic and future prosperity interests would be undermined if the networks were judged to be insecure, their usage and economic value would be reduced.