Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

I wish to make some progress, but I will be happy to give way in a while.

What the Prime Minister promised was full fibre by 2025. Then he downgraded that pledge to universal “gigabit-capable” broadband, and then, in the Queen’s Speech, the pledge was watered down further to “accelerating the roll-out” of gigabit-capable broadband. I am pleased that, in this Bill, the Government appear to be acknowledging the limitations of a market free-for-all and now propose a number of minor measures to ease infrastructure build-out by giving operators more power to access apartment blocks when requested by tenants.

This is a mediocre Bill. On Second Reading, the Minister spoke of

“taking the first hammer blow to the barriers preventing the deployment of gigabit connectivity.”—[Official Report, 22 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 358.]

This is not a hammer; it is not even a toy hammer. It is like one of those sponge hammers that may make you feel better, but actually does nothing at all. This Bill does not go far enough in solving the problems brought about by a wasted decade in which the Tories allowed the re-monopolisation of broadband infrastructure and failed to take advantage of the world-leading position left by the last Labour Government. If the Government genuinely believe in the levelling up of the UK’s broadband, the Prime Minister has to do far, far more than this.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Could the hon. Lady give the House some guidance on the amendment proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and the three different versions of something that looks similar in the name of the Leader of the Opposition? I would like to understand why the Opposition are taking a different line from that of my right hon. Friend, and what that amounts to.

[Chi Onwurah]

The right hon. Gentleman anticipates the point that I was about to make in my speech, and I will clarify the differences.

Despite the lack of ambition in this Bill, we will not be opposing it. The Government are taking baby steps when it comes to digital infrastructure, but we will not stand in their way. Indeed, we will help them. We will be pushing a set of practical amendments in line with the Government’s stated intentions on tenants’ rights, competition and excluding high-risk vendors from UK telecommunications networks in the absence of the management and mitigation plans that we have been promised. There is also an important amendment on cyber-security education.

Amendment 2 expands the definition of persons who can request an operator to provide an electronic communications service to include rental tenants and other legal occupants who may not own the lease to the property that they occupy. Although the Bill’s explanatory notes and comments from the Minister suggest that tenants can make the request, the Bill itself does not make that clear, referring to them as lessees. Many tenants are desperate for gigabit broadband to enable them to work from home or grow their business. What if the landlord is difficult to reach or indifferent to their situation? Should not the person who actually lives in the building have some rights?

I will not try your patience, Mr Speaker, by expounding at length on the dire state of both home ownership and leasehold—or fleecehold as it is more properly known. The Government could end the misery of millions if they took on the large landowners and followed Labour’s commitment to end leasehold altogether. The system is broken, and that is one reason home ownership rates among young people are a third lower than they were in the early noughties. There are 4.5 million households in the private rented sector. We know also that tenants can easily find themselves in precarious and insecure circumstances through no fault of their own, or even with nowhere to live as a result of a section 21 notice. We therefore have a large proportion of our population condemned to renting for life, but with few rights and less certainty. Although the Government seem unwilling to address the housing crisis, they could, at the very least, ensure that tenants benefit from this legislation, and that is what our amendment seeks to do.

Much of the publicity around today’s debate relates to amendments 1 and 4, which seek to limit or prevent operators with high-risk vendors in their networks from taking advantages of the provisions of this Bill. Mr Speaker, as this is an issue of national security, I do hope that you will forgive me if I take quite some time to discuss these amendments.

My first job when I left Imperial College was with Nortel, a Canadian world leader in the then emerging telecommunications sector. If someone had said to me that a couple of decades later we would be incapable of building a European telecoms network without a Chinese vendor, I would have been astonished. Essentially, though, that was the Government’s position when they confirmed that Huawei would be allowed to participate in the UK’s 5G network, despite national security concerns. Huawei is bound by China’s National Intelligence Law 2017 to

“support, co-operate and collaborate in national intelligence work.”

We are not Sinophobes or Chinese conspiracy theorists. We do not believe that trade and cultural exchange with China are a bad thing, as some have suggested. There are also many great people working for Huawei in this country dedicated to improving our national infrastructure.

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[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

We have looked at the past, we are where we are and now we look to the future. That suggests that we will become completely and utterly in thrall to providers that we cannot possibly trust. That is a big security risk, and it is a statement of absence of thought by any Government. If defence of the realm is our No. 1 priority, this becomes demi-defence of the realm, and I am simply not prepared to put up with that.

[John Redwood]

I thank my right hon. Friend for highlighting and leading on this crucial issue; I fully support him. Will he confirm that there is technology outside China that would do this job perfectly well?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am glad that my right hon. Friend raises that point, which I was going to come to. He is right. There has been a whispered suggestion to many of my colleagues and, I am sure, others—I do not mean that anyone has set out with malicious intent, but with practical intent, I suspect, to head off any would-be vote in the wrong direction—that we have to use Huawei because there is no other way of doing this, but that is simply untrue. Yes, there were 12 companies once upon a time and they are much reduced in number now, but I am aware of at least three that have been involved in 5G development or are capable of doing 5G development in what I call the free market world, with all of us, and they are Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung. In fact, Samsung has been involved in the South Korean 5G network anyway, and every one of them says, “We can do this.” The question then is that this will add cost, but I am sorry to say that, in reality, when it comes to security versus cost, my view is that security wins every single time.

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[Dr Fox]

Not only are they greatly exaggerated, it is utterly untrue that there is a link between the two. My hon. Friend has made the case perfectly clearly that the Chinese knew that the Australians were ruling out Huawei involvement yet they still trade with Australia, so the argument in this debate is a red herring entirely. This is an issue about national security. Also, in terms of trading and China, we have not yet resolved issues such as dumping, illegal subsidy and intellectual property theft—and that is before we take into account the 2017 national intelligence law.

[John Redwood]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that in the important talks between the US and China, the issue of intellectual property theft and the legitimate defence of western technology was absolutely central and the US got guarantees in that deal which we still do not have?

[Dr Fox]

That was absolutely central, as my right hon. Friend says; whether the guarantees will turn out to be enforceable is a separate issue, however, and that of course points to some of the issues the United States has about Chinese membership of the World Trade Organisation.

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[Oliver Dowden]

The National Security Council looked at that. The National Cyber Security Centre advised on it, working with GCHQ. We took that analysis of the risk. That was then assessed by Ministers through the National Security Council, who weighed up that risk. The Government took the decision that we should have a cap of 35% for high-risk vendors—principally, Huawei—and we would then seek to diversify and reduce that. We are clear in that commitment: we want to diversify away from Huawei. What we are setting out today is the process for achieving that, and that is, first of all, about ensuring that we get the capacity there in the first place.

[John Redwood]

Why is there no sense of urgency about getting the alternative capacity in? This is not a unique technology to the Chinese company. These are potentially massive orders. Put it out to bidding and see what is out there.

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. There is a huge sense of urgency in this. That is why we are committed to working with our Five Eyes partners to make sure that, for the first time, we set out a timetable to say that within this Parliament, we will get the capacity, so that we can then ensure that we will start to move away from our reliance on high-risk vendors. It is already capped at 35%. We want to get to a position where we do not need to rely on them at all. This is the important first step and it is about assuring the House that we are on the path towards diversification.

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[John Nicolson]

I certainly do agree with the hon. Gentleman: I think that he is absolutely right. One of the peculiarities of the Government’s position, from our perspective, is that they are prepared to invest billions in fighting 20th-century battles—renewing Trident, for instance—while opening their arms to 21st-century threats to cyber-security. As the hon. Gentleman suggests, countering those threats would require serious investment in and protection of native companies, which would involve a long, hard look at China’s enthusiasm for the acquisition of small engineering companies that have valuable intellectual property in this country.

I support the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), and I will vote for it if there is a Division. I think that I should now cut my time short, as I am beginning to sound like a 1930s jazz singer. I know that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central is very keen on those.

[John Redwood]

I support my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and my other right hon. and hon. Friends, who have made a strong and cogent case based on national security. As they have argued, there are some absolutes in national security. There are occasions when a risk is such that whatever the commercial or other considerations might be, it is important for that to be put first.

However, I wish to add to their argument. I do not think the commercial and economic situation in the medium term is any different from the national security situation. Indeed, I argue in defence matters and these wider matters that our country cannot say it is secure if it does not have control of the crucial technologies it may need to defend itself and protect itself. Nor can we say that our country is secure—an island trading nation—if we are dependent on countries and suppliers in other parts of the world who may in some future disagreement or, heaven forfend, some conflict no longer be willing to supply us.

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[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

The right hon. Gentleman rightly refers to our national security being dependent on our allies. Some of our best allies are old friends such as Australia and New Zealand. Surely it is deplorable that any move we make could damage that relationship.

[John Redwood]

I agree. I have supported my right hon. and hon. Friends and I have not wished to bore the House by repeating all their excellent arguments, but of course the fact that the United States of America, Canada, New Zealand and Australia are all of one view does matter. I happen to think they are right, but even if they are wrong, sometimes we have to go along with wrong thoughts by our allies and friends—I know that only too well, trying to live in the Conservative party—in order to make things work. There has to be give and take, and I am sure that any other political party with an honest MP would agree that it has exactly the same issues. Before Labour Members get too conceited, I have to say that I have noticed even more extreme issues in the Labour party. It is important that there is give and take.

I happen to think our allies are right, but I want to stress the wider point that in this vision of a more prosperous Britain, we are going to have more skilled people. That must mean we have a bigger role to play in the technologies of today and tomorrow, and those are surely the crucially important digital and data communications technologies. I repeat my challenge to the Minister. We have heard from people who know about these things that this technology already exists among our allies and in safe countries today, so we have an opportunity to buy from them.

The Government and the commercial sector in the United Kingdom are about to commit enormous resource into putting 5G into our country. This is going to be a massive investment programme, and in this situation, money talks. I have no idea who will win the competitions. I do not have preferred vendors that I want to win the competitions, but I do know that I do not want high-risk vendors winning them. Surely this new Government, wanting to level up and wanting to strengthen technology and training, can use this commercial money and state money to better effect. Let us bring forth those providers now and get rid of those high-risk providers as soon as possible.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I think we all share some concerns that the Government seemed to be more amenable to moving their position last week than they are this week. At the end of the debate last week, the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), who kindly responded to us, said that

“we will work to move towards no involvement of high-risk vendors”—[Official Report, 4 March 2020; Vol. 672, c. 299WH.]

in our system. I am unsure whether the Secretary of State has said the same thing today, and we would all be grateful if he clarified whether that statement made by the Minister is still a live statement or whether he is effectively rowing back from what the Minister said.

I speak in favour of the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) because I believe that high-risk vendors should not be in our critical national infrastructure. This is for reasons of national security, which have been eloquently put, as well as for a whole host of other reasons, including human rights, data privacy, the rule of law and economic competition—a critical one just mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood).

One of the most concerning elements of this entire sorry saga has been the litany of questionable claims. One of the problems of being a new Member—I speak in part to the good people behind me—is that we want to trust Ministers and although I hold these Ministers in high regard, I believe they have unfortunately been handed a poisoned chalice. There has been a great deal of misinformation in the past—none of which they are responsible for—but it is worth putting this on record with as many sources as possible, so that we can be absolutely clear what the argument is about.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green talked about Huawei being a private firm, because that is one of the claims that it has made. Sir Andrew Cahn described Huawei as being

“the John Lewis of China”,

and, frankly, I treat that description with the derision it deserves. The academic Chris Balding has made a study of the ownership structure of Huawei, and he has stated:

“Technically, the firm known as Huawei is Huawei Technologies. Huawei Technologies is 99% owned by Huawei Investment Holdings.”

He went on to say that Huawei Investment Holdings was a vehicle of the Chinese trade unions. Chinese trade unions are a public or mass organisation. Public organisations do not have shareholders. An example of a public organisation in China is the Communist Youth League. So, despite the laughable claims in this country and elsewhere that Huawei is a private company—and it is trying to sue people in France who are claiming the same thing, let it be known—Huawei has the same relationship to the Chinese state as the Communist Youth League.

Can Huawei be safely limited to the periphery of 5G networks? The core versus periphery argument has been well laid out by Opposition Members. The Australian Signals Directorate says that

“the distinction between core and edge collapses in 5G networks. That means that a potential threat anywhere in the network will be a threat to the whole network.”

I have been talking to Dr Ian Levy and other good, knowledgeable people from the NCSC. They dispute some of this, and they try to provide technical analysis, while that is not correct. I note what the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo says, on the advice of the National Security Agency. He says:

“Because 5G networks are largely software-defined, updates pushed to the network by the manufacturer can radically change how they operate.”

So if a network is run by an untrusted vendor, that vendor can change what the network can do quite easily using software updates.

Shared Rural Network

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

That is very true.

The hon. Gentleman makes a very fair point, which is that honesty about the coverage being offered is very important. There is nothing more frustrating for people than being told that they have coverage—or it even looking like they have coverage on their phone—but they still cannot make a call. I am concerned to hear how EE handled that particular attack. I hope that Members right across the House will always know that, if they have problems such as that, they should contact me, the Ministers involved, or the Department so that we can follow it up on their behalf.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

How and when will my constituents in west Berkshire and Wokingham be able to get an advantage out of this excellent initiative? Will they need to do anything?

[Nicky Morgan]

No, they will not need to do anything. They will see the roll-out. Near, if not in, his constituency is, of course, a significant office of Vodafone, and we are grateful that it is part of these arrangements.

Telecoms Supply Chain Review

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Gentleman has asked a number of questions; let me try to deal with as many of them as I can.

On the hon. Gentleman’s last point about Chinese involvement in the wider economy, he will recognise that there is a balance to be struck between welcoming inward investment into our economy, which we do, and wanting to be confident that our security requirements are met. In relation to ZTE, he may know that the Government’s judgment, based on advice from the National Cyber Security Centre, is that ZTE should not have engagement particularly in the 5G communications network, which is the subject of this review and this statement.

On the hon. Gentleman’s earlier points, he describes what I am announcing as prevarication. I hope that I have been straightforward in accepting that there is a delay, and I have explained the reasons for it in relation to Huawei. I do not believe that it would be sensible, responsible or helpful to anyone, including the telecoms industry, were I to give a partial decision today when I am not in a position to give a complete decision. It follows from that that when the decision comes to be made, there will be a new Prime Minister in office—that is now a little less than 48 hours away—so it is inevitable that that will be the case.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned a legal challenge. As you would expect me to say, Mr Speaker, from a former life I am always aware of the possibility of legal challenge. In my experience, it is always a possibility, but the way that we can best insulate against it is to reach sensible decisions based on defensible criteria. Again, the best way to do that is to make sure that we have all the information that we need before we make a decision of this kind. That is precisely what the Government propose to do.

It is, of course, a possibility—and remains so—that the Government may decide that an outright ban on Huawei equipment in the 5G network is the appropriate course of action. All I say today is that we are not yet in a position to make a comprehensive decision about that. As soon as we are, we will, but the hon. Gentleman has my assurance—as I indicated to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson)—that the decision that we take will be, first and foremost, in the interests of the United Kingdom, and that security interests and our national security equities will be the most important consideration in that.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) suggests that the actions that we are taking are behind the curve internationally. That is not so. If we produce telecoms security requirements in the way that we propose, they will be world-leading measures, and we should be proud of that. We will legislate for them as soon as we are able to do so.

The hon. Gentleman asked for more detail about what diversification of the supply chain might involve. Let me give him some possible examples. We are talking about measures such as improved access to spectrum and the promotion of new infrastructure models. He will be aware of the £200 million 5G test beds and trials programme, which we believe will support new investment, and we can and should pursue greater interoperability for equipment from different suppliers, including by requiring this in technical standards. Of course, the Government can use their buying power to promote a diverse supplier base. We should do all those things in addition to seeking to invite existing, established suppliers to come into the UK market, where they are not already present.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does this mean a delay in the roll-out of 5G to constituents in Wokingham and elsewhere? If so, how long a delay are we talking about?

[Jeremy Wright]

The commercial decisions that mobile network operators are making now about what equipment to buy are part of a continuing process. All those mobile network operators will need to consider carefully the position I have outlined today and make the appropriate commercial judgments, but we are seeking to move as quickly as we reasonably can to give them the clarity they need to continue making those investments.

Centenary of the Armistice

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

A hundred years ago on Sunday, a deafening silence broke out over the vast battlefields of Europe. Then, as now, there must have been very mixed emotions. There would have been that great sense of loss and remorse that so many people had been slaughtered, and so many people maimed and incapacitated. I guess that for those in the trenches there was apprehension. Was this for real? Could they trust the enemy? Would this truce hold? Could they stumble out of those muddy dungeons that had been their safe houses over all those long weeks and months of toil into a more open and free world where they could behave more normally? But they were, and we are, also permitted some joy that at last this murderous, bestial war was over. After four years of mass industrial slaughter, with millions of individual tragedies between the men and the families of the different combative nations, at last the slaughter was over. There was a chance to build something better.

When I lay a wreath in the morning in Burghfield and in the afternoon in Wokingham, I will be very conscious of two things. I will be conscious that there are war memorials in every other village and town in my constituency that time does not permit me to visit that day. As I look up at those lists of names on those two war memorials, I will be very conscious of how long those lists are and of how many brothers are together on the same list, with a double or treble tragedy for the family. That scale of loss is difficult to comprehend and to wrestle with.

It reminds me of my two grandfathers. As is the case with most of us, our great grandfathers or our grandfathers were the survivors. They were young men who fought as young men and then tried to build a more normal life when they got back from the trenches. They had not had time to have girlfriends and to marry and produce children before they went off to war. My two grandfathers, like many others, went at the earliest possible opportunity, or may even have misled those involved about their age so keen were they to volunteer. Both fought on the western front. One was badly injured, but, fortunately, recovered. I wanted to know from them, as a boy and as a teenager, more about these terrible events. Like many of their generation who had been through the war, they did not really want to share it with us. It was obviously so awful. They did not seek my praise and they did not seek my sympathy. They wanted to shield me from it. I wanted to know more about it, but I think that they took that view because it was so awful.

We have heard many moving remarks today, particularly about those who died, but let us think about those who survived. Let us think about what it must have been like to have four years of no normal life—as someone who was 17, 18, 19, 20 or whatever they were—where they had no normal social life and no normal family life apart from very rushed periods of leave, when they could not pursue their normal sports and leisure pursuits because space would not allow it, when they had no privacy, and when they had very repetitious food. The dreadful things they fought are obvious—the shells, the bombs, the rifle bullets, the snipers and the machine guns. You can just about imagine how awful it must have been to have that fear that you were going to be asked to advance on barbed wire and machine guns, knowing that you had very little chance of surviving, but what about the boredom? What about the relentless discipline and the inability to know how to fill the time while you were worrying about what was going to happen next? All of those things must have been dreadful. So this is what I think we need to do. We owe it to them, to all those who directed the war, and to all those in this Parliament who sent our army to war—time does not permit this afternoon—to have a proper analysis and discussion about how we can do better in future. I am no pacifist. I think we have to arm ourselves well to protect ourselves and to preserve the peace. We have fought too many wars and, too often, we sent our Army into wars where they had limited chances of winning. We did not have a diplomatic and political strategy to follow the war. There is no use in winning a war, unless we win the peace as well. We know that the sequel to the first world war is the second world war—the tragedy that it all had to be done again on an even vaster scale with even bigger munitions and more terrifying bombs, eventually ending with the explosion of two atomic bombs to bring it to a very sad conclusion.

We need to ask ourselves how we can make sure that diplomacy and politics does not let people down so much again. How was it part of our strategy that, twice, this Parliament sent small highly professional British Armies on to the continent to fight a war against a far bigger, better armed foe when they had no chance of winning because they had too little resource, the wrong weapons and the wrong tactics? In the first world war, it took four years to recruit a mighty citizens’ army, to invent a lot of new weapons and to develop new tactics during the war. We were sadly unprepared. We asked them to do too much and it is amazing what they did.

Data Protection Bill [Lords]

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I think it is very important that the elected House, having considered the question and in supporting a manifesto commitment of the party in government, should have its say. That is absolutely right. It is a very important constitutional argument, but I am also making an argument of substance. The approach that we are proposing is the right one—that we do not have statutory regulation of the process, but that we in this House can debate a report on what is happening in the press and the self-regulation of it. I think that is the best way to take this question forward.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I fully support what the Secretary of State is trying to do. Does he see a rather worrying undemocratic tendency in the other place—it does not like the result of referendums, the EU withdrawal Bill, which was a manifesto Bill, or this manifesto Bill, and now it wants to regulate the press because the press point out the errors of its ways?

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[Edward Miliband]

I have two answers to that. First, this has been tested, and there were no fines, no systematic investigations and no equivalent front-page corrections. Secondly, there is no substitute for a systematic look at these issues and for asking why that culture was allowed to exist and why in certain cases it is still allowed to exist.

Conservative Members rightly express concern about the freedom of the press, and they must vote in the way that they think is right, but this is not about the freedom of the press. The National Union of Journalists, which after all represents journalists, states:

“Not allowing Leveson 2 is bad for journalism and bad for the public”.

The NUJ’s concern is that the ongoing actions of the minority are undermining the brilliant journalism that we have in this country. It therefore believes that it would be better for our trust in the press if this inquiry were to go ahead.

[John Redwood]

But does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the media landscape has been transformed out of all recognition in recent years by social media and the internet, and that further investigation into this history will not illuminate the modern system at all or help us to deal with the difficult questions of fairness between the traditional media and the new media?

[Edward Miliband]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. This is why social media and fake news are at the heart of the terms of reference recommended by Sir Brian and are included in what has come back from the other place. I hope, on the basis of his intervention, that we might have his support for this process, because I see no other vehicle that could achieve what he has just said he wants to achieve.

Data Protection Bill [Lords]

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We debated this at length on Thursday and discussed the fact that it is vital that we look to what is needed for the media now, to ensure that instead of having a set of proposals that were designed several years ago and that would lead to any claimant being able to claim costs no matter the merits of their case, we have measures that enable our press to be sustainable for the future.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I support the Secretary of State in proposing that these amendments be removed. Like many in this place, I have been on the wrong end of fake news and misrepresentation many times, so I do not do so out of personal interest. I think there is a wider public interest: a free press is an extremely important part of a democracy. The press will not always get it right, but we need to be very careful about the amendments from the Lords.

[Matt Hancock]

I wholeheartedly agree with my right hon. Friend.

This Bill is an essential piece of legislation that makes the UK’s data laws among the most effective in the world. This House must never shy away from supporting new technology. The Electric Lighting Act 1882 was considered so important that the House sat on a Saturday to get it through. I hope that will not be necessary this time, but I do hope that the House will adopt similar enthusiasm in backing this Bill. Doing so would support our entrepreneurs in harnessing the value of data, while giving citizens confidence when they go online.

I was pleased a few weeks ago that the Opposition Front-Bench teams in the other place agreed that the Bill was a positive and necessary step. I hope the whole House will agree tonight, and I commend this Bill to the House.