Subsea Telecommunications Cables: Resilience and Crisis Preparedness

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western]

I thank my hon. Friend for serving on the Committee and for the work he is doing in chairing the Defence Committee, and he is absolutely right. There are several elements to this. One is, as we have seen in the Baltic and around our shores, the nature of the threats. The attacks on cables are proving provocative, and we have to demonstrate a more muscular approach to how we view them. It is interesting to see that some of our peers in NATO have taken this a bit further, and we should look closely at that, but we are constrained by international law.

I have mentioned the Submarine Telegraph Act 1885, which is not fit for purpose. There needs to be some thinking along the lines of what we can do within our territorial waters to address any threat that is presented, such as we saw last year with the Yantar and other ships. Work needs to be done on the legal side, but also on the hardware that we can deploy. As an island nation, this should be something on which we can develop a huge sovereign capability, which would also boost our exports.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the quality of this report? I have a family interest in undersea cables: it was my great-great-grandfather, Professor Fleeming Jenkin, who laid the first transatlantic telephone cable in 1858. On the question of deterrence, can we realistically deter this kind of behaviour by our adversaries if we continue to allow our hands to be tied by an overstrict interpretation of international law? The vandalism committed on undersea cables has very serious economic consequences, and maybe even national security consequences. It is being committed by ships that are themselves in breach of international law. Should we not just deal with them, particularly if they open fire on our military aircraft, as happened recently with lasers from a Russian ship?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Mr Western, be careful of the time.