Passport e-Gates Network Outage

Lord Vaux of Harrowden Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, the eGates software is provided by a fairly small Portuguese company called Vision-Box, under a contract that was signed in 2013 and has been extended to at least 2027. As someone who spends most of his life working in software mergers and acquisitions, I can say that it would be pretty normal, when a key contract such as this is entered into with a smaller supplier, that a change of control clause would be included in the contract, allowing the customer—the Government in this case—to obtain safeguards about future performance before any takeover of the company is completed.

Vision-Box was taken over in April by a very large Spanish group called Amadeus. Was there a change of control clause in the contract? Were suitable undertakings obtained from Amadeus before Vision-Box was acquired? Can the Minister confirm that the outage was not related to changes made by Amadeus as a result of the takeover? Looking forward, I understand that the Vision-Box software is currently based on Windows 10, which will no longer be supported beyond 2025—so is the Minister confident that Amadeus is committed to a suitable upgrade path?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I will address the last points first. As I said, it was not a software issue that caused this particular outage, so I can deal with that relatively straightforwardly. As regards government contracts, as the noble Lord will be aware, I think they are all published on GOV.UK. I am not sure if this one was or if I am wrong there, but I will check and find out and come back as required.

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

Is it redacted?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Yes, I will also check on that.

I did not know about the Amadeus takeover of this particular Portuguese company, but I will make further inquiries and, if there is more to be said, I will write to the noble Lord.