Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Minister of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made of the comments by former Chief of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove in respect of the Government's UK Telecommunications strategy.

The Telecoms Supply Chain Review included an international workstream to take account of the range of international positions so that they could be factored into UK decision-making.

In reaching the final decision on high risk vendors, the Government took into consideration the full range of threats and risks informed by the technical and security expertise of the UK’s intelligence community, led by the National Cyber Security Centre, together with all relevant information, both public and classified, including that from partners.