Jaguar Land Rover Cyber-attack

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The evidence that my hon. Friend mentions related to subsea cables, for which I think the situation is robust. In fact, we had another cut to one of the subsea cables during the summer months; it was, I think, repaired within eight days. We are one of the best countries in the world at repairing subsea cables, but we are also one of the more vulnerable countries, because we are an island nation. I assure him that we three Ministers—the Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Kanishka Narayan), the Minister for Security and me—will apply exactly the same diligence and lack of complacency to this issue as to the issue of subsea cables.

[Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Widnes and Halewood (Derek Twigg) for seeking and securing this urgent question. It is good to see the Minister in his place, with his perennially cheerful, Tiggerish demeanour, following the reshuffle.

In the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, we are extremely concerned about this incident. The Minister mentioned WHS Plastics, which is based in Minworth in my constituency. I spoke to the chief executive yesterday in some detail; he has 2,000 employees and eight plants, and the vast majority of his business goes to Jaguar Land Rover. The Minister will know that throughout the west midlands, there are probably more than 200,000 people in the supply chain who are directly affected, and I understand that all the factories globally have been shut down.

May I ask two questions to the Minister and support what was said by the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne)? First, can we have an absolute assurance that we will have full help from all the relevant agencies of the state, and that they are seriously and 100% engaged in all this? Secondly, will the Minister press for maximum transparency, so that the staff who are being sent home in very large numbers, and who are naturally very anxious and worried about this issue, can be reassured to the greatest extent possible?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, all the agencies will be engaged to the fullest possible extent. As the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee said, we will bend over backwards and do everything we possibly can to ensure that this issue gets resolved as soon as humanly possible; I do not want to say when that will be, because I simply do not know. If the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) would like to pass on the details of the chief executive of WHS Plastics, I am very happy to have a call with them, and with others in the supply chain, later this week. It is often not just individual companies, but the whole supply chain that is affected. As for Tigger, I seem to recall that the final line in the song is:

“the most wonderful thing about Tiggers is I’m the only one!”