Domestic Infrastructure: Chinese Ownership

Lord Cunningham of Felling Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to my noble friend, who has drawn attention to the need to get the balance right. America has banned Huawei from federal networks. We do not plan to go as far as that. I think America has a different approach from this country to international trade and inward investment, particularly under its “America first” policy. Of course, it has particular difficulties with China at the moment. We want to get the balance right and to have the best digital infrastructure we can, with up-to-date equipment to promote growth and inward investment, but we do not want to compromise national security. Huawei is precluded from taking part in certain sensitive parts of our infrastructure—lawful intercept, for example—and in other cases its equipment is interposed between equipment from other firms to mitigate risks. We keep the balance under review, but I think we have it about right.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have the laudable objective of procuring for the United Kingdom the latest 5G high-speed technology communications system. We should all support that. We should also all support the idea that we need adequate protection against some people’s technologies. Since, in this case, the most advanced optical fibre technology is from either Huawei or ZTE—both Chinese-owned and controlled—how will the Government achieve their objective if we are not to deal with them? There is no other way to do it at that level of technology. As I said some time ago in this House, if we are not willing to trust the Chinese with our communications system, is it not a bit perverse to suggest that we trust them with our civil nuclear power?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

In the case of Huawei, we have set up unparalleled arrangements in this country. As the noble Lord will know, we have set up at Banbury a centre to evaluate Huawei’s strategy and the equipment it is developing. That board is overseen by the chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, so we have a deep insight into what Huawei is up to and can take mitigating action in certain circumstances. As I have said, in certain circumstances we can ban it from taking part. But we want to make use of the latest technology and, as my noble friend said, Huawei is a world beater and it would not be in the national interest to ban it totally. We are looking at whether we have the legal structure right for the future in protecting national security, but I think we have the balance about right.