Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if his Department will make an assessment of the (a) prevalence of the use of and (b) the level of UK reliance on the supply of imported cellular internet of things modules in national security infrastructure.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
I refer the Hon Member for Barnsley Central to the Minister for the Cabinet Office’s answer of 26 July 2023 (UIN 194829), noting that the Procurement Bill has now become the Procurement Act following Royal Assent on 26 October 2023.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to Section 29 of the Procurement Act 2023, how many (a) suppliers and (b) sub-contractors who have been awarded public contracts have been reviewed by his Department on the basis that they present a potential threat to national security.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government takes the security of its supply chain extremely seriously and has taken action to bolster the powers to intervene where a risk to national security has been identified.
The Procurement Act 2023 received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023 and will strengthen the security framework around public procurement. It includes new powers to ban suppliers from specific sectors, such as areas related to defence and national security, while allowing them to continue to win procurements in non-sensitive areas. It will come into effect in Autumn 2024, after which the National Security Unit for Procurement will consider cases relating to these powers.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to protect critical national infrastructure from cyber attacks.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government works constantly to strengthen the security and resilience of UK Critical National Infrastructure (CNI).
The Cabinet Office works closely with Lead Government Departments to understand, manage and mitigate the impacts of cyber risk to their corresponding CNI sectors. Each CNI sector's security and resilience is overseen by a Lead Government Department, and it is that Department's Minister that will hold overall accountability for that CNI sector. The UK Government also works closely with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the UK's national technical authority. NCSC are working with CNI operators to help them find the cyber exercising and incident management services they need from the marketplace by expanding the NCSC’s accredited scheme for Cyber Incident Response and introducing a new scheme for exercising.
At Cyber UK 2023, the Deputy Prime Minister announced that we have set specific and ambitious cyber resilience targets for all critical national infrastructure sectors to meet by 2025. This is alongside examining plans to bring more private sector businesses working in critical national infrastructure within the scope of cyber resilience regulations. This work will further our ambition to understand and manage cyber risk.
Through the National Cyber Strategy, the Government is working to improve resilience to cyber risks across the UK economy and drive organisations to take action themselves as part of a whole of society approach. Over the past year, the Cabinet Office has been progressing foundational work to support the creation of common but flexible resilience standards across CNI and do more on the assurance of CNI, including cyber assurance preparedness by 2030.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 4 December 2023 to Question 4433 on Three: Vodafone Group, if he will publish the decision of the Investment Security Unit on the proposed merger between Three and Vodafone.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
Given the quasi-judicial nature of the government's investment screening powers, and for commercial and national security reasons, it would be inappropriate to comment on any specific acquisitions or the potential applicability of the NSI Act 2021. However, transparency is of course a crucial part of the NSI Act, and as such, the Government publishes notices of any Final Orders made on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what his planned timetable is for the Investment Security Unit to decide on the proposed merger between Three and Vodafone.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
The Deputy Prime Minister, as Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office, takes decisions under the National Security and Investment Act 2021 in a quasi-judicial capacity. The Investment Security Unit coordinates expertise from across Government so that the Secretary of State may make decisions based on the evidence. It would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he has consulted with other Government departments on national security risks posed by the proposed merger between Three and Vodafone, in line with the Investment Security Unit’s role of coordinating expertise across Government.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
The Deputy Prime Minister, as Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office, takes decisions under the National Security and Investment Act 2021 in a quasi-judicial capacity. The Investment Security Unit coordinates expertise from across Government so that the Secretary of State may make decisions based on the evidence. It would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the proposed merger between Three and Vodafone on national security.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
The Deputy Prime Minister, as Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office, takes decisions under the National Security and Investment Act 2021 in a quasi-judicial capacity. The Investment Security Unit coordinates expertise from across Government so that the Secretary of State may make decisions based on the evidence. It would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what meetings he has had with (a) devolved mayoral authorities and (b) local authorities on national resilience in the last 12 months.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The previous Minister for the Cabinet Office and the Deputy Prime Minister chaired meetings of the UK Resilience Forum on the 2nd of February and 19th July 2023, to discuss risk and resilience capability building with senior stakeholders from across national, regional and local government; the private and voluntary sectors and other interested parties. More widely, the Cabinet Office engages regularly with all local partners on national resilience, as part of the Government’s commitment to implement the December 2022 UK Government Resilience Framework.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is the Lead Government Department responsible for managing the relationship between central government and local authorities.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether his Department is taking steps with the insurance industry to help build resilience to large-scale cyber attacks.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Good cyber security is a first line of defence which protects industry, end users and the insurance industry alike from cyber attacks.
The Government’s approach to driving up resilience through the National Cyber Strategy includes working with market influencers, including insurers, to incentivise good cyber security practices across the economy.
The Government regularly engages with the insurance industry to consider how it can best support the growth of the cyber insurance market and help build wider economic resilience to cyber attacks.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent meetings have taken place between the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and devolved administrations on national resilience.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Government holds regular resilience meetings with the Devolved Administrations. These include the UK Resilience Forum. The Deputy Prime Minister and I co-chaired the most recent meeting in July. I also chaired a Ministerial forum in Edinburgh in June with Devolved Administration colleagues to discuss resilience priorities and our respective progress against them. Cabinet Office officials also meet regularly with the Devolved Administrations on matters of national resilience at all levels of seniority to ensure we are coordinating our approach.