Commons consideration of Consideration of Lords message to the Environment Bill - Nov 8

Clause 24

Guidance on the OEP’s Enforcement Policy and Functions

19:08:00

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
I beg to move, That this House insists on its amendments 31A and 31B and disagrees with Lords amendment 31C.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 33B, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Lords amendment 45B, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Government motion that this House insists on its amendments 75A and 75B, Lords amendment 75C, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 85D and 85E.

Rebecca Pow
I am delighted to be here in the House for what I really hope will be the final time discussing the Bill, even though I have quite relished my involvement with it. It has been quite a journey, but here we are with a Bill that does so much to set us on a sustainable trajectory for future challenges: tackling air, water, and waste pollution; improving our environment on a scale never before done; and stemming the tide of biodiversity loss and restoring nature. The sum of all these parts is groundbreaking.

I turn first to Lords amendments 31C and 75C, tabled by the noble Lord Krebs and Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick in the other place, and amendments 31A, 31B, 75A and 75B, which the Government are insisting on today. I wish to put a number of points on the record in the knowledge that ministerial statements in Hansard could be drawn on by the courts as a legitimate aid to statutory interpretation in the future.

The office for environmental protection is and must be an independent body capable of holding public authorities to account for their environmental responsibilities, including through the use of its enforcement functions. That is why the Government have given the OEP a remit and powers of unprecedented breadth in the Bill. For the OEP to work effectively, it must act strategically and take action only when there is an environmental and public interest in doing so. On that point, everyone is agreed.

As the Secretary of State is ultimately accountable for the OEP’s performance and use of public funds, the Government consider that the accountability power in clause 24 is necessary to ensure that the body continues to use public resources effectively to achieve the greatest public good. However, I must be clear that the content of guidance is limited to the areas of the OEP’s enforcement policy listed in clause 22(6). It cannot be used to direct the OEP as to the content of any report it might produce or any advice to the Government. Indeed, it cannot be used as a power of direction at all. It would also be inappropriate for the Secretary of State to issue guidance on specific matters relating to the enforcement of environmental law against the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, given that there would be a conflict of interest. I do not want to be disingenuous: the OEP would be expected to have regard to any guidance issued, but it will retain the ability and discretion to make its own decisions, and will not be bound to act in accordance with the guidance where it has clear reasons not to do so.

Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Will the Minister give way on that point?

Rebecca Pow
I am going to rattle on. We have one hour only, but I will respond in my closing speech as much as I can to any issues that arise.

Many in this place and the other place have previously raised concerns that the Secretary of State might be able to use guidance to preclude the OEP from investigating a broad category of individual cases or subject areas, such as a nuclear power station. I must say, unequivocally, that it is our view that the power could not lawfully be used in that way. Any guidance issued must be consistent with the duty in paragraph 17 of schedule 1 for the Secretary of State to have regard to the need to protect the independence of the OEP. Any guidance that diverted OEP scrutiny away from entire policy areas, outside of existing statutory steers on prioritisation, would not be in keeping with that duty. This is not a power that could be used simply to divert the OEP away from investigating issues that could be in some way inconvenient to the Government. The provision for guidance on how the OEP intends to exercise its functions means that the guidance will, by its nature, be on the OEP’s approach to those issues, rather than defining specific areas to prioritise or deprioritise.

The OEP will operate with a very high degree of independence, especially when it comes to making individual enforcement decisions. In exercising its discretion in individual cases, the OEP would need to have regard to all relevant factors, but must ultimately take all its decisions objectively, impartially and independently of Government. Furthermore, the Environment Bill already provides that the OEP should focus on cases that have national implications. Guidance could not be issued that went against the existing provisions, but it could instead add further detail. However, it will remain up to the OEP, within the framework provided by the Bill and any guidance, to determine whether cases that have a discrete local impact also have national implications, or for some other reason have sufficiently broad or widespread impact to be considered serious, or to be prioritised for the purposes of its enforcement functions.

It is important to note that the Secretary of State is also able to offer guidance on how the OEP should respect the integrity of other bodies and existing statutory regimes. With such a broad remit, the OEP will be able to scrutinise all public authorities, including many expert scientific bodies. This ability will be important for it to be able to take a broad view and identify systemic issues.

I am sure the OEP will be extremely effective, but it will be a relatively small body with a broad remit. The decisions of organisations such as the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, which employs hundreds of world-leading marine scientists, will be based on deep expertise and often highly technical scientific data. The OEP will need to be mindful of that in its own decision making when scrutinising such bodies. It is important to get the balance right to maintain confidence and integrity within existing regimes, and guidance could help to address that. We believe the power is important to ensure accountability, so that the OEP can contribute to delivering environmental improvements in the way I think we all agree it should: by acting strategically not just in the short term, but long into the future.

19:15:00

I can also confirm that this Government will not issue guidance to the OEP before the initial setting up of the OEP or before it has had the chance to develop its own enforcement policy. I recognise the points that hon. Members have raised, which is why the Government have previously reintroduced a provision for Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly to scrutinise any draft guidance before it is issued.

Jim Shannon
rose—

Rebecca Pow
I hope that might answer the point the hon. Member was going to ask.

Draft guidance will need to be laid before both Houses for 21 days. During that time, either House will be able to review the guidance and make recommendations or resolutions to which the Government must respond. Select Committees, such as the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee, may also wish to take the opportunity to scrutinise the guidance, and Ministers would be obliged to respond to them in the usual manner.

I turn now to Lords amendment 33B on environmental review, tabled by the noble Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and the Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu that I am tabling today. On environmental review, the key area of debate has been the remedies available in the event a breach of environmental law if that is confirmed by the court. At the heart of the issue has always been the fact that through environmental review the OEP will have the ability to bring cases to court outside standard judicial review time limits, potentially long after the decisions in question have been taken. For that reason, the Government have maintained that bespoke provision is necessary to ensure certainty and fairness for third parties who have acted in line with decisions made by public bodies, and to protect good administration.

The OEP may pursue cases for enforcement action only if it considers that the conduct in question would constitute a “serious” failure to comply with environmental law. Clause 22(7) states that the OEP must have regard, among other things,

“to the particular importance of prioritising cases that it considers have or may have national implications.”

The OEP will have discretion to interpret those criteria, setting out its approach in its enforcement policy, but it follows, in the Government’s view, that cases which have only a local concern, for example most individual planning and environmental permitting decisions, are unlikely to have sufficiently broad or widespread impact to be prioritised. The OEP could pursue such cases if it considers they are indicative of a broader or more systemic issue or failure, or if especially serious harm has or may result from the potential failure. The OEP, for example, could consider it in relation to the destruction of a nationally important population of a rare and protected species, but it should not be the norm.

However, we have listened to and carefully considered the views and concerns raised in this House and in the other place, and agree it is important that the protections are balanced with the need to prevent or mitigate serious environmental harm. As such, I am pleased to be able to propose an amendment in lieu, which strikes that important balance. In introducing it to the House, I must repeat my earlier acknowledgement that ministerial statements in Hansard could be drawn on by the courts as a legitimate aid to statutory interpretation in future. The amendment will ensure that a high bar is still set for the granting of remedies where third parties may be affected. This is set out in condition A of our amendment. But, critically, it will also provide that, even where condition A is not met, if the court is satisfied that it is necessary in order to prevent or mitigate serious damage to the natural environment or human health, and there is an exceptional public interest reason to do so, the court will be able to grant a remedy. This is set out in condition B. It gives the court discretion to undertake a real and meaningful, albeit weighted, balancing exercise. It means that there would no longer be a blanket prohibition on the granting of remedies where third parties are likely to suffer substantial hardship or prejudice.

In the rare cases where third parties may be affected, however, I would like to illustrate how this provision could operate with an example. Potentially, on an environmental review, the court could rule that an environmental permit had been granted to a factory operator with such inadequate conditions that it was unlawful. If the court concluded that condition A was not met, because substantial hardship to the factory operator would be likely to result from quashing the permit, it would turn to condition B. If, in the absence of a quashing order, it is likely that the factory would continue to release harmful air pollutants with serious impacts for the health of the local population, the court may conclude that it is necessary to grant a remedy in order to prevent or mitigate serious damage to the natural environment or human health. At this point, the court would need to weigh the public interest in preventing serious harm against the public interest in preventing substantial hardship occurring to the third party. In order to grant a remedy, the court would need to be satisfied that the public interest in preventing this serious harm substantially outweighed the interest in preventing hardship, thereby constituting an “exceptional public interest reason” to grant the remedy.

In such cases, where severe damage to the environment or people’s health could occur or continue if no remedy was granted, the court may choose to grant a remedy. Given the types of serious cases that the OEP is likely to bring, we consider that this test strikes the appropriate balance. I have every faith that it will do so and that the amendment will therefore be a valuable addition to the OEP’s enforcement framework as a whole. I hope that the amendment provides reassurance that the Government are thoroughly committed to protecting against environmental harms through the OEP’s enforcement functions, and that the House will support it today.

I turn to what I believe most people are waiting for: the issue of storm overflows. I hope that colleagues will bear with me while I set out our position, because I believe that this is extremely important. So many people have spoken to and contacted me constantly about this whole process and I will take questions at the end, if that is okay, because we are so tight for time.

I have been clear that the frequency with which sewage is discharged from storm overflows into our waters is absolutely unacceptable. It is a credit to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) and the campaigning of many others that the phrase “storm overflow” is now used 47 times on the face of the Bill. However, I recognise that many hon. Members wanted to see more, and I am pleased to have tabled a further amendment that says that water companies “must” secure a progressive reduction in the adverse impact of discharges from their storm overflows. In this legal drafting, the word “must” means that we are placing a direct legal duty on water companies to do this. That is really crucial. Water companies will have a simple choice: reduce sewage discharges or face the consequences—that is, strong enforcement action.

Turning back to the specific amendment from the Duke of Wellington, we have redrafted it to ensure that it has proper legal effect and there is more effective implementation, and we have gone further in places. I have had much discussion with the Duke of Wellington —I greatly respect and value that—and I would like to clarify a number of points. This amendment places a clear legal duty on water companies to deliver improvements —something that the Duke particularly pressed for. Indeed, ours is a stronger duty than in his wording. Our amendment will ensure that they have to take the necessary steps relative to the size of the problem. We have taken the “progressive” reduction wording from the Lords amendment. “Progressive” means that water companies must continue to take action even after the next price review period and even after they have achieved a significant reduction and tackled high-priority sites, as required in the draft policy statement to the regulator, Ofwat.

Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister give way?

Rebecca Pow
I will not take any interventions, because I just want to get this on the record, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind—I know that he is passionate about this whole environmental issue.

I am aware of some wildly inaccurate claims that have been circulating online for the past so many days that we are somehow legalising the dumping of raw sewage—we are not. Our amendment goes further than the Lords amendment by legally specifying that “adverse impacts” includes impacts both on the environment and on public health—for bathers, canoeists and so forth. Enforcement was a key part of the Duke’s amendment and our version goes further, because it will dock in with the existing enforcement regime in the Water Industry Act 1991. Ofwat can issue enforcement notices that can direct specific actions or fine companies up to 10% of their annual turnover, running to millions of pounds. If we do not see sufficient progress from water companies, Ofwat and the Government will be able to take enforcement action, and we will not hesitate to do so. Not only that—under other provisions in the Bill, the OEP will be able to take enforcement action against the Environment Agency or Ofwat or, indeed, the Government, should it feel that any of us are not adequately discharging our duties.

There has been much debate about the costs required to eliminate sewage discharges from storm overflows. Last week, the Storm Overflows Taskforce, which I set up, published research on this issue. It estimated that the complete elimination of sewage discharges through storm overflows in England, which many are calling for more broadly, is likely to cost between approximately £350 billion and £600 billion. That could mean up to £1,000 on bills every year. There are important discussions to be had about the best way to address this important issue while protecting bill payers, and this very morning, I called the CEOs of all the water companies in to a meeting. They assured me that they recognise the need for urgent action. We must see better performance from them and I will be watching the progress closely, as indeed, will the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

I would much very like to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow and the Duke of Wellington for their tireless efforts on this issue. Today, I am asking the House to vote in support of the Government: you will be voting directly—

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
No, I will not be voting at all.

Rebecca Pow
Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker—that is a pity. My fault—I got carried away. Today, I am asking the House to vote in support of the Government, and this means a vote directly to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas, with greater protection for our waters than ever before.

Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Here we are again—it is 648 days since the Environment Bill was first introduced to Parliament and we are still here debating it, trying to get bolder action from Ministers on the environment, climate and nature. Ministers, I am afraid, are still dragging their heels in not introducing the bold action that we need—particularly against the routine discharge of raw sewage into rivers—still favouring a weaker watchdog than they should be.

In the middle of a climate and ecological crisis and at the very time that the UK is hosting COP26, this is generational injustice in action. We need to see bolder action. There was no mention from the Chancellor in the Budget of climate or nature. In fact, there were cuts to domestic flying duty, coupled with the Prime Minister flying from Glasgow to London on a private jet. I am sure that the Minister will have joined me when we came back from COP in travelling by train, rather than flying, and the Prime Minister should have done so as well. It is a wrong, bad, outdated message to say, “Do as I say. Don’t do as I do”, but I am afraid that that is what we are used to. It sets an appalling example for the world that the Prime Minister did not take the train instead of taking the plane, and it is up to us here to sort that out.

Britain is, again, the dirty man of Europe. Not one English river is in a healthy condition; not one meets good chemical standards.

Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The hon. Member will no doubt be aware that I am seeking water bathing status for the Thames along Port Meadow. One reason why that is so important is the dire state of our rivers: none of them is chemically sound. The illnesses that my constituents have reported, when they just wanted to get into the river for the sake of their mind and body, are atrocious. Does he agree that this is a national issue that is not adequately addressed by the amendments, and we need to go further?

19:30:00

Luke Pollard
As a keen wild swimmer, I want bathing water quality in our rivers to improve massively, not just for swimmers but for the natural world, so I support the hon. Lady in her efforts.

Water quality in our rivers in England is not good enough. In the past year alone, raw sewage was discharged into UK rivers and seas more than 400,000 times. The Government’s response was to whip their MPs to vote against an amendment that would have stopped raw human sewage pouring into our precious rivers and seas. I am afraid that the message that that vote sent was a poor one.

Then came the rightful public outcry, which shamed the Government into a U-turn after days of digging in their heels. They have now adopted much of the amendment that they voted against, which is welcome, but they have not adopted it all. I thank the Minister and the Secretary of State for their time speaking to the Opposition about the issue, and I am grateful for the Minister’s words today putting our concerns on record, but I have to say that publishing an amendment at 5 pm last Friday did not really build trust, either among Members on both sides of the House who wanted to see the detail or among the stakeholders who were looking forward to scrutinising carefully what the Minister had to say.

Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Trust is paramount for the communities up and down the great rivers of this country, as the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) mentioned. Reading is downstream from Abingdon; London is further downstream. We are all deeply concerned about the state of our rivers. Although the Government have given some concessions and have listened to some extent, the way they have behaved still leaves a lot to be desired. The public remain deeply concerned about the issue.

Luke Pollard
I believe that the public are seriously concerned about what has happened in the House over the past few weeks. They have been alerted and awakened to the volume of raw sewage discharged into their rivers and seas; they want faster and bolder action from Ministers now that they are aware of this absolute outrage in our environment. That is why we need to build trust again.

In her speech and in earlier remarks, the Minister has cited a figure of more than £600 billion, but the maths is disputed, to say the least. It is not sufficient to say, “To deal with this properly will cost £600 billion, but to deal with tinkering around the edges will cost hardly anything on the side,” and pretend that those are fair options to choose between. We need a much bolder approach, with honesty and clarity rather than threats about bills and about how the process works.

We also need to look at how to build trust with the public again, because they are very concerned. I share the Minister’s concern about fake news online and do not wish to see wildly inaccurate claims made, so such a large figure needs to be backed up with clear evidence. I have tabled a parliamentary question asking the Minister for the working behind it; I hope she will be able to confirm the answer in due course.

Labour wants a stronger amendment. The Minister’s amendment in lieu of the Duke of Wellington’s amendment is confined to storm overflows rather than addressing the sewerage system as a whole—a really important point. There is no specific duty on Ofwat or the Environment Agency to ensure compliance, but there should be. We need to focus on reducing harm, rather than just on the adverse impacts. The amendment in lieu looks like the Government looking busy without making a real difference, so I want to set out three things that I hope the Minister will confirm today that could make a difference.

John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
We all want to clean up the rivers. Could the hon. Gentleman give some idea of the timetable and cost that he thinks would be appropriate?

Luke Pollard
Funnily enough, that is a point that I was going to refer to the Minister, because there is no timetable—a really glaring hole in what has been published today. A progressive reduction in discharges sounds all well and good, but I would like to progressively reduce the amount of cake I eat, and yet there is a big difference between doing that over a day and doing it over a year. I am a big fan of cake, as some in the House may know.

Let us get down to the detail. There are three things that I would like the Minister to confirm; otherwise, I fear that we will not be able to support her amendment. First, will she commit to reviewing the scale of fines so that water companies that continue to routinely discharge raw sewage face higher penalties?

Secondly, Labour wants the guidance in the strategic policy statement for Ofwat to be super-strengthened so that there is a clear direction to water companies to target the most polluting discharges now, with a plan to address the rest urgently against a clear timeframe. Progress by DEFRA, Ofwat, the EA and water companies should have proper parliamentary scrutiny annually via the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, or potentially the Environmental Audit Committee.

Thirdly, will the Minister set out in detail what she means by “progressive reduction”? That means answering two very simple questions: by when, and how much? If that cannot be set out, it is just spin. I fear that water companies could say, “We are meeting our progressive reduction with these two tiny projects over here,” and not set out a clear commitment. By when and how much will discharges be progressively reduced?

Geraint Davies
Will my hon. Friend give way?

Luke Pollard
I will keep going, just because of the pressure on time.

It is not just the Opposition who have concerns. Water UK and water companies tell us that they have concerns about the Government’s amendment and favour the Duke of Wellington’s. Green groups, environmental groups, angling groups, fishing groups and swimming groups also say that they favour the Duke of Wellington’s amendment over the compromise amendment, so there is widespread concern.

There is a lesson for Tory Back Benchers from the sewage vote and from what happened last week with parliamentary standards and corruption. It is now a brave Tory Back Bencher who will listen to their Whips on unpopular votes, because after dragging their MPs into the gutter, the Government are likely to U-turn a week later and make them look foolish. However, let us be clear about the agency that each Member of Parliament has. The last vote on sewage was a disaster for the reputation of many Members of this House. They knew what they were doing: they were putting the party Whip ahead of the environment, and voters will judge them on it. Doing it once was a mistake; doing it twice is a pattern that voters will recognise and will vote on accordingly next time round.

It is vital that we rebuild trust on the issue. The sewage scandal has been a shameful episode for the Government. There is real cross-party desire to make our approach stronger. I would be grateful if the Minister set out whether she will support the three elements that I have outlined so that we can support her amendment; if we do not get that reassurance, I am afraid that we cannot.

Labour wants the OEP, instead of being a lapdog, to be a strong, robustly independent watchdog. The Minister has tried to put reassurances on the record that the Government will not seek to frustrate the OEP if it needs to hold them to account and take enforcement action against Ministers. In the past week, however, we have seen exactly what happens when the rules no longer suit the Government, so we want them in the Bill—not just a statement from the Dispatch Box that may or may not be used in future court cases, but clear rules in the Bill.

What the Minister set out about having regard to the guidance is welcome, but the experience with budget-setting powers and with the Electoral Commission, where Ministers have threatened a public body on receiving bad news from it in another investigation, is a bad precedent that needs to be removed.

We want the Bill to be better. There are good things in it, but on the whole it is just a bit “meh”: it does not reach the scale of the action we need for the scale of the crisis we face. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister set out whether she will support the three things that I mentioned. If not, I am afraid that Labour will not be able to support her compromise amendment on sewage and will vote against it so that we can secure a vote on the Duke of Wellington’s amendment, which is far superior.

Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
I am very conscious of time, so I will be brief. I rise to discuss Lords amendment 45 and the Government amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 45B. I thank the Minister for the time that she and the Secretary of State have taken to engage with me and with the Duke of Wellington in relation to his amendment, which I supported at the last stage. I particularly thank the Minister for her clarification today that the Government amendment in lieu places in the Bill a clear duty on water companies to reduce the impact of sewage discharges. That issue was at the heart of my private Member’s Bill and is included in her amendment.

What the Minister’s amendment adds, which was not in my private Member’s Bill or, frankly, in the Duke’s amendment, is the commitment to include a reduction in harm to public health, which will be of great benefit to the increasing numbers of people who use our rivers for swimming, canoeing and other activities that involve actually getting into the water, rather than just touching it with a fly or a leaded weight to catch a fish. The public health impact is something that we should not forget.

There have been comments about how effective the Minister’s proposed enforcement regime will be. I think that locking the enforcement regime into the existing Water Industry Act regime is potentially a more effective method than the one proposed in the previous Lords amendment. Of course there will have to be enforcement, and one of the big problems that we have had with the Environment Agency over the last 30 years is that its powers have not been rigorously enforced. I strongly encourage the Minister, as she engages with the consequences of the spending review, to urge the agency to increase its enforcement efforts in respect of the water companies.

There have also been comments—a few moments ago from the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), with whom I have also engaged on this matter, and from outside—to the effect that the concept of a progressive reduction could be trivial. The hon. Gentleman gave some examples. I think that that is to fundamentally misunderstand how the amendment will lock into the other measures in the Bill. Before my private Member’s Bill emerged, the Government had already indicated that they would introduce for the first time in statute a requirement for sewerage undertakings to produce a drainage and sewerage management plan to last five years. Every five years, it would be updated. Within that plan, there is a requirement to reduce the impact of the activities on the environment.

The proposed new clause locks the duty into those plans, and the plans are subject to a Government power to rewrite them if the Secretary of State of the day does not believe that they are good enough or go far enough. So there is, in my view, a clear link between the amendment and requiring water companies to make a progressive reduction in sewage discharges of materiality. That seems to have been missed by many of the commentators who have been complaining about whether the Bill has teeth.

In addition—as the Minister said—to this set of requirements on water companies, the office for environmental protection will have the power to investigate poor behaviour on the part of companies that do not meet their statutory duties in the Bill, which include a progressive reduction in sewage discharges and their impact. It will be able to consider whether the Environment Agency is doing its job in regulating the companies’ progressive reduction of those discharges, and, as we have just heard, it can also investigate Ofwat.

For all those reasons, I think that the Bill provides a clear direction to water companies that they must reduce sewage discharges, which, as Members in all parts of the House agree, have got to stop. I will be supporting the amendment.

Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
I will not speak for very long. I am aware—as always—that the Bill is largely concerned with English environmental matters, as environment is for the most part devolved to Scotland, and I have to say, thank goodness for that! The Lords amendments serve to highlight some of the progress that Scotland has made in environmental protection.

In respect of the amendments on the OEP, I should point out that we have already established an independent governance body in Environmental Standards Scotland, which is fully independent of the Scottish Government and answerable to the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government were happy to support it, because they know that true independence of regulators is a vital part of their role.

It seems to me that the UK Government’s reluctance to accept independent oversight is one of the main causes of delay to the implementation of the Bill. It strikes me as incredible that one of the cornerstones of environmental protection in England, post Brexit, is an issue still being argued about by this Government. It exposes the fact that our departure from the EU leaves us all very vulnerable to this Government, any future decisions that they might make to slash regulations, and subsequent environmental backsliding. It is also disappointing to note that the Government have resisted calls to take really strong action through the Bill, such as implementing the World Health Organisation’s standards for air quality, which we have done in Scotland. Let me also record again my utter dismay that the Government inserted an amendment via the House of Lords, the intent and outcome of which I still deplore. UK Ministers ignored the express wishes of the Scottish Parliament as detailed in the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021 on a devolved issue, and cut those wishes down.

Let me turn to the amendments on sewage. Water is an area very clearly devolved to Scotland. Scottish Water is a statutory organisation, accountable to the Scottish Parliament. It is owned, if you like, by the people for the people, and that is the way the Scottish people like it. Although we have our own problems with outdated Victorian sewer systems struggling to cope with the “once in a hundred years” events that now seem to be occurring every two to three years, the fact remains that any profits made by Scottish Water are invested in the services and infrastructure of Scotland’s waterways rather than the pockets of shareholders, and that Scottish Water does not carry the stratospheric levels of debt carried by English water companies—and that is the way the people of Scotland like it too.

19:45:00

Let me be absolutely clear: this is a devolved area, and the amendment clearly states that it concerns English water companies. I think it important to remind the House that there is clear blue water between the situation in England and that in Scotland. Although, as I have said, we in Scotland have our own problems with ageing systems that require large-scale investment in the face of the climate crisis whose real effects we are starting to see in our communities, and no one is suggesting that the situation in Scotland is perfect—indeed, I am certain that this is one of the first issues that Environmental Standards Scotland will look at—the principle that our water services remain in public ownership is hugely important, and this Government should remember that.

While water is currently exempt from market access principles in the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, delegated powers granted to Ministers in that legislation mean that they can, with very little trouble to themselves, change that situation almost at the stroke of a pen, and with no real reference to the opinions of devolved Governments or, indeed, this Parliament. UK Ministers could submit devolved policy areas to market access principles despite current exemptions, and regardless of the views of the people of Scotland on the matter. Now it is up to the parties of successive UK Governments since privatisation occurred ultimately to explain to the people of England their actions in choosing to place their precious water systems in the hands of profit-driven corporations.

Let me end by saying that if UK Ministers at any stage try to open up the Scottish water supply to market access, the howls of outrage and fury from the people of Scotland will be heard even as far away as this place. I warn the Government of that now.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I hope that the next contributions will be very brief indeed, because we can only keep the debate running until seven minutes past eight.

Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak about these Lords amendments.

I welcome the Government’s progress on the Office for Environmental Protection. I think that its independence is better protected than it was before, but that is something of which we must be very conscious. I believe that it will be very effective under Dame Glenys Stacey, and I think that the Secretary of State will work with her, as will Ministers, to ensure that it is indeed independent. It must have enough resources to be able to continue its work. I hope that it will prevent a great many cases from going to court. We will ultimately need a judicial system to make it work, but I hope that the new system and the new body will bring about many conclusions on environmental problems, and a good deal of advice so that cases do not end up in the courts for years.

I will be very quick, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I want to welcome the work that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) has put into the outflows amendment, and also the work done by the Duke of Wellington. Together, they have negotiated extremely well—dare I say it—with the Government, and what the Government have now come up with is absolutely right.

Geraint Davies
As the hon. Gentleman knows, if we do not accept the Wellington amendment, we will all have to wear Wellington boots to avoid the stools while we are paddling. But does he agree that we also need on-roof water capture with water butts, upstream water capture, and downstream and water processing plant capture so that we can take the pressure off the sewerage system when there is flash flooding, and sort out this problem without immediate massive investment in the sewers?

Neil Parish
I thank my hon. Friend—I will call him my hon. Friend—from the Select Committee. As he rightly says, we need to capture more storm water and rainwater, because it is unfortunately getting into the sewers and causing these outflows. That is an important point. The water companies have to ensure that they recompense their shareholders, but having done an enquiry in previous Parliaments, I know that we have to apply a lot of heat to those companies to ensure that they put the investment into curing the problem of outflows. We also have to ensure that the Environment Agency and Ofwat use their teeth on those companies to make that happen.

I believe that we can do this. There is a great deal of cost involved, but those companies need to concentrate a lot of their resources on these issues to ensure the quality of the water we bathe in, the rivers that we fish in and those that we want to swim in. Like the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), I also do a bit of wild swimming. I swim in the River Parrett, so I will probably end up in the Bristol channel one day. But seriously, I believe that we will clean up the water but we must put pressure on the water companies. What the Minister has said is welcome, and I know that the Secretary of State will also put pressure on them. I will stop there, because I know that many hon. Members from across the House and from Devon and Cornwall and across the west country want to speak on this issue.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I will now put on a time limit of three minutes so that we can get as many people in as possible. If people could speak for less than three minutes, that would be absolutely great.

Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
I want to thank everyone in my constituency who has written to me about the Environment Bill during its long progress. It has been a long time coming, but I will be brief. I would also like to thank those in the other place who have put up a good fight and improved the Bill. I am disappointed that, despite all the wrangling, the debates and the evidence, there is still an enormous gap between the Government’s rhetoric on the environment and this Bill, which simply does not go far enough. While all the eyes and hopes of the world are on Glasgow and COP26, the Government are doing all they can to resist introducing concrete protections, leaving our environment as a bargaining chip for new trade agreements that would undercut Britain’s environmental standards. They cannot have it both ways.

I am disappointed that the Government have refused to include World Health Organisation air quality targets in the Bill. There is much unfinished business here, on trees and on single-use plastics, and I must include wet wipes in that. The Office for Environmental Protection was meant to hold Ministers to account on their green policies, but the simple truth is that the Government’s preferred OEP will lack independence and will not be able to hold Tory Ministers to account in the way that they have promised. That is why we had such tortuous explanations of how it will work in the opening statement: the Bill is simply not clear enough and does not go far enough. I therefore urge colleagues to support Lords amendments 31C and 75C.

I am proud to have the River Thames in my constituency, but we have a dirty water emergency. While the Government’s proposal is a big improvement on what went before, it still does not place a duty on the Secretary of State, as set out in Lords amendment 45B proposed by the Duke of Wellington, to tackle sewage, to tackle that plastic getting out and to tackle the killing of fish, which happens on a regular basis worldwide. This progressive reduction does not cut it with those of us on the Opposition Benches. In short, the Bill is still not fit for purpose. It has certainly improved since its First Reading nearly two years ago. I was proud to be on the Bill Committee, in which nearly 200 amendments that would have improved the Bill were tabled, but not one of them was agreed to.

We have had to drag the Government kicking and screaming just to get the Bill to this stage, and that is embarrassing when the UK is supposed to be showing global leadership on the climate emergency. There have been a lot of bold words from the Government, and I really hope to see them put into practice, but I fear that the Office for Environmental Protection will not be able to enforce everything, just as the Environment Agency has not been able to enforce everything, and that is why we have our dirty rivers. We will be cheering this on, and we will hope for more, but we are disappointed by the progress so far.

Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
I would very much like to thank the Minister for her clarity today. I represent a constituency that has a great river running through it. It is a river that I have sailed on all my life and also swum in all my life, albeit sometimes unintentionally. This whole debate around the sewage amendment is very personal to me because I am the daughter of a boatbuilder who often used to work on boats on his creek right next to raw sewage and water scum. Nobody on the Government Benches could deny that that kind of environment is totally disgusting.

Also, this year we saw an unprecedented period in which our beautiful Kent beaches were shut because of an absolute disaster involving the dispersal of sewage from the overflows. There is no doubt that water companies pumping sewage into our waterways in 2021 is disgusting. Two weeks ago, I supported the Duke of Wellington’s amendment because I wanted the Government to go as far as they could practically go in stopping this practice. I am very thankful for the work of the Minister and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) and for the discussions that have gone on in these two weeks to ensure that we have been able to bring forward this amendment today. I will support the Government tonight, because I totally believe that this new duty, combined with other measures in the Bill, will be a major step towards ending the use of storm overflows.

I was disappointed by some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), for whom I have great respect. We need to recognise that this Government and these Ministers are the first to tackle the issue of sewage and storm overflows. No Government have done that previously, and I am proud that the Minister, who is so passionate about this issue, has worked incredibly hard to accommodate our worries and fears. The Environment Bill is a major piece of work for the protection and improvement of our environment. Make no mistake, these measures will cost the water companies and the bill payers, but I believe that they will bring the water companies into line so that we can stop this disgusting practice. I will be very happy to support the Minister and her team tonight.

Jim Shannon
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate, but I will not take too long. I want to ask the Minister a quick question. I am pleased to see what is coming forward in relation to single-use items and the conservation covenants, and I am pleased that those measures have all been passed. However, I still have a concern about the Office for Environmental Protection’s enforcement policy. Lords amendment 31 states:

“The OEP has complete discretion in the carrying out of its functions, including in—

(a) preparing its enforcement policy,

(b) exercising its enforcement functions, and

(c) preparing and publishing its budget.”

That has merit in my eyes, and I would be interested to hear the Government’s rationale as to why they believe it is unnecessary, as I believe that similar amendments were made in relation to Northern Ireland.

I am also gratified to learn that there is now a Government amendment in place for a duty to be enshrined in law to ensure that water companies secure a progressive reduction in the adverse impacts of discharges from storm overflows. That has been lacking for many years, and I have seen the devastating effects of discharge from storm overflows on homes that merit at least this form of protection. For too many years, the water companies have been doing the bare minimum. I seek the Minister’s confirmation that more will be done to ensure that the rivers and waterways around this great United Kingdom are protected, that more will be done than just the bare minimum, and that this will be the beginning of progress. We must all take our obligation to future generations more seriously. I often say, as others do, that we leave our environment for the generations that come after us, and for the sake of my grandchildren—and my great-grandchildren, when that time comes—we must ensure that the water companies step up to their agenda.

Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I will be as brief as possible, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the Ministers for listening and for moving on this issue, and above all I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), who was sitting next to me, for his leadership on this issue. I do not think that this could have happened without him. To be blunt, if this amendment is good enough for him, it is good enough for me. He would not support it if it were not strong.

On the Isle of Wight we have some wonderfully clean beaches, but any sewage discharge is unacceptable. In a place that is environmentally sensitive—we are a UNESCO biosphere—and that has so many amenity sites because of so many visitors swimming, having human poo on our beaches is not acceptable. The same applies in the Solent, for sailors, whether they are in the Solent accidentally or deliberately. We need to clean this up.

I also note that I know the Government are somewhat victims of their own success. It is great being lectured by the Opposition, but this groundbreaking Bill is being brought in by the Government side, and we should all be supporting it.

I have two questions for the Minister, who was kind enough to say that she would take them. First, the Government have power to push the water firms to go further, faster. Will she be willing, and will the Secretary of State next to her be willing, to use that power to ensure that the water firms understand the urgency of this situation for our waterways and our beaches?

Secondly, and if I understand it rightly, can the Minister confirm that ecologically sensitive sites and amenity sites, as which the Isle of Wight’s beaches both qualify, will be given priority? I am writing to the water firms about that this evening, but anything the Minister could do to clear that up and to ensure that those amenity and ecologically sensitive sites are prioritised would be very welcome.

20:00:00

Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
I rise to oppose the Government motion to disagree with Lords amendment 45B on sewage discharges. We need higher fines for polluters and annual parliamentary scrutiny and to define progressive reductions—how much, and by when—of sewage discharges, as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) said.

The Thames runs through my constituency; I have kayaked there, I have paddle-boarded and on Saturday I ran 26.2 miles along it. I quote:

“The real test of Government seriousness is whether they also instruct regulators to authorise investment in sewers, and end policies that make the problem worse.”

Those are not my words, but the words of the water companies on 22 October. Why were the Government dragging their feet when the water companies were encouraging them to support the Duke of Wellington’s amendment?

There has been broad support for stronger action. Yet again, the Minister quotes the £600 billion cost that she says dealing with the problem will cause, but the water companies say the cost is in the region of £13 billion to £20 billion using concrete storage tanks, or £20 billion to £30 billion more if they are accompanied by natural drainage schemes that bring wider community benefits. That compares with the £1.2 billion already being spent by industry on overflows between 2020 and 2025. This does not represent some unfeasibly large jump in effort, say the water companies.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport explained that the amendment does not go far enough, so Labour will not be supporting it. DEFRA has been decimated; the Minister herself just now described the OEP as a small organisation. The Government’s approach to this aspect of the Environment Bill—in fact, all aspects of the Environment Bill—is yet another example of how they just pay lip service to the environment.

Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
I will be brief, because I know we want to end. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) and my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) for articulating what I would have wanted to say, had I had longer to speak. I also thank the Secretary of State and the Minister for their accessibility in this ongoing negotiation on sewage storm overflows.

This issue has been a passion of mine since childhood, when I grew up on the Yorkshire coast and swam in said sewage. Now I have the great privilege of representing two coastlines in Cornwall, as well as inland waterways, and to have been a member of Surfers Against Sewage since before I moved to Cornwall. It has been a great regret that the organisation has been at the centre of a very nasty campaign, supported by hon. Members on the Opposition side, accusing me of having voted to pump raw sewage into the oceans, which I have not. All of us in this Chamber can agree that we want to put an end to that. If anybody accuses me of that again, I would be grateful if they wrote to my office so that I can provide them with a detailed answer.

I look forward to seeing Truro and Falmouth benefit from the myriad of measures within the Bill, which I do not have time to go into. I am grateful to Members of both Houses of Parliament, of all political persuasions, for showing how well this House works and how it is possible to get the Government to move on something that is extremely important to everyone. I will leave my comments there, because I know that we are short of time.

Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I will finish within a minute and 20 seconds, Madam Deputy Speaker. Let us just focus on the sewage, then, given that that is the time available to us.

We have, thanks to the Government amendment, now a duty on water companies to progressively reduce the amount of sewage discharged through storm overflows —but there are no targets for either volume or timescale. That leaves water companies with the power to continue doing what they do now. This amendment is something to get Conservative Back Benchers off the hook, rather than to give water companies the direction they need.

I represent the English Lake District. I am disgusted that there is raw sewage being dumped into Lake Windermere for 71 days, collectively, in any given year. This amendment will do nothing to stop that. Currently, a water company dumps 40% of all the phosphates in Windermere. If that goes down to 39%, there is no measure to say whether that is okay, so I assume the water companies will think that it is okay.

What about timescale? What if the amount goes down over five years or over 10 years? All the Government amendment does is give the Back Benchers of the Conservative party an excuse to write to their constituents and say, “There has been further movement in the right direction.” It allows the Government to let the water companies off the hook, while doing nothing at all to demand what is necessary to clean up our lakes and our rivers.

Rebecca Pow
We have been two and a quarter years bringing this enormous Bill through Parliament. I want to thank all hon. Members and hon. Friends for their contributions, particularly those who have approached me personally over the past few days: my hon. Friends the Members for Redcar (Jacob Young), for Workington (Mark Jenkinson), for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst), for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), for Devizes (Danny Kruger), for Somerton and Frome (David Warburton), for Yeovil (Mr Fysh), for Havant (Alan Mak), for Keighley (Robbie Moore), for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson), for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) and for Watford (Dean Russell).

I also thank many others from all around our coasts, including my hon. Friends the Members for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) and for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie). If I have left anybody out, I will be writing to them—[Interruption.] And my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely). Yes, we will be looking at ecological sites and bathing waters first when we bring in the storm overflows legislation. That should placate the wild swimmer from the Opposition Benches, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard).

I have outlined in enormous detail why we should vote for these amendments—

20:07:00

One hour having elapsed since the commencement of proceedings on the Lords message, the debate was interrupted (Programme Order, 20 October).

The Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair (Standing Order No. 83G).

That this House insists on its amendments 31A and 31B and disagrees with Lords amendment 31C.

Division 103
08/11/2021 20:07:00
The House divided:
Ayes: 279
Noes: 162
Question accordingly agreed to.

The Deputy Speaker then put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83F).

Clause 37

Environmental review

Resolved,

That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 33B and proposes amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.—(Rebecca Pow.)

After Clause 78

Storm overflows

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 45B and proposes amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.—(Rebecca Pow.)

Division 104
08/11/2021 20:21:00
The House divided:
Ayes: 283
Noes: 163
Question accordingly agreed to.

Lords amendment 45B accordingly agreed to and amendments (a) and (b) accordingly made in lieu.

Schedule 3

The Office for Environmental Protection: Northern Ireland

Resolved,

That this House insists on its amendments 75A and 75B and disagrees with Lords amendment 75C.—(Rebecca Pow.)

Lords amendments 85D and 85E agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83H), That a Committee be appointed to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for insisting on amendments 31A and 31B and disagreeing to Lords amendment 31C, and for insisting on amendments 75A and 75B and disagreeing to Lords amendment 75C;

That Rebecca Pow, Mrs Heather Wheeler, Selaine Saxby, Jo Gideon, Mary Glindon, Ruth Jones and Deidre Brock be members of the Committee;

That Rebecca Pow be the Chair of the Committee;

That three be the quorum of the Committee;

That the Committee do withdraw immediately.—(Rebecca Harris.)

Question agreed to.

Committee to withdraw immediately; reasons to be reported and communicated to the Lords.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill Programme (No. 3)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Telecommunications (Security) Bill for the purpose of supplementing the Order of 30 November 2020 in the last Session of Parliament (Telecommunications (Security) Bill (Programme)), as varied by the Order of 17 December 2020 in that Session (Telecommunications (Security) Bill (Programme) (No. 2)):

Consideration of Lords Amendments

(1) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.

(2) The proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Lords Amendments 4, 5, 1, 2, 3.

Subsequent stages

(3) Any further Message from the Lords may be considered forthwith without any Question being put.

(4) The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.—(Rebecca Harris.)

Question agreed to.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Consideration of Lords amendments

After Clause 23

Network Diversification

20:37:00

The Minister for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure (Julia Lopez)
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 4.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 5, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 1 to 3.

Julia Lopez
I am pleased that the Bill has returned to the House from the other place and for the chance to speak to it. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) for his tremendous work in bringing it through the House earlier in this Session and in the last.

The Bill will create one of the toughest telecoms security regimes in the world. It will protect networks, even as technologies grow and evolve, shielding our telecoms critical national infrastructure both now and for the future. As the House will be aware, the Bill introduces a stronger telecoms security framework, which places new security duties on public telecoms providers and introduces new national security powers to address the risks posed by high-risk vendors.

I will briefly summarise the changes that have been made to the Bill. Lords amendments 1 to 3 were tabled by my colleague in the other place, Lord Parkinson. Lords amendment 4 relates to reporting on supply chain diversification and Lords amendment 5 relates to reviewing actions taken by Five Eyes nations regarding high-risk vendors. I will speak first to Lords amendments 1 to 3.

The important role of parliamentary scrutiny has been raised in debate throughout the passage of the Bill. In the other place, particular attention has been paid to scrutiny of our strengthened telecoms security framework. In its report on the Bill, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee noted that the new codes of practice were central to this framework, as they will contain specific technical information for telecoms providers. The Committee recommended that the negative procedure should be applied to the issuing of codes of practice. We carefully considered the Committee’s recommendation over the summer, and tabled amendments 1 to 3 in the other place to accept them.

The amendments will require the Government to lay a draft of any code of practice before Parliament for 40 days. Both this House and the other place will then have a period of time to scrutinise the code of practice before it is issued. These amendments demonstrate that we have listened and that we are committed to every aspect of the framework receiving appropriate parliamentary scrutiny. I commend these amendments to the House.

I will now speak to Lords amendment 4, regarding diversification. This amendment would place an annual requirement on the Government to report on the impacts of their 5G telecoms diversification strategy on the security of public telecommunications networks and services. It would also require a debate in the House on that report. The Government cannot support the amendment for two reasons. The first objection relates to the flexibility necessary for diversification. A reporting requirement of this nature is restrictive and premature. This is an evolving market that is rapidly changing, and we need the flexibility to focus our attention where it will have the greatest impact. While our focus is currently on diversifying radio access networks, once that part of the mobile network has been diversified we will move on to focus on other areas. Committing to reporting on specific criteria would limit us to reporting against the risks as we find them today and would not afford us the flexibility that diversification requires.

Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I am very interested in what the Minister says, because one of the major themes, and one of the big failures of the 5G debacle over Huawei, is the fact that we do not have diversification in the network. How will the Government be able to do a stocktake every year so that we as parliamentarians, and others, will be able to judge that what is being said about a commitment to diversification, which is in a lot of policy papers, is actually happening in practice?

Julia Lopez
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comment. Hon. Members will be able to raise in the normal way, through parliamentary questions, scrutiny at oral questions and Committee work, what we are doing in this area. We are reporting regularly on some of our diversification efforts and some of the money that we are spending from the spending review.

Mr Jones
I accept that, although the current Government’s response to parliamentary questions these days is sometimes lacking. What benchmark, then, will the Government use for ensuring diversification? I accept that the Minister is the Minister today, but there will possibly be a future Minister—she will not be there for ever—so how are we to judge that we are actually going to get that diversification? Without that, we will end up as we have done now, with a network that is market-led and diversification is not in the market.

Julia Lopez
I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns. We are committed to reporting to the House on a regular basis, but we do not want to limit ourselves on specifically what we will be reporting on in technological terms, because this is a rapidly evolving marketplace and we need to make sure that we have the flexibility to deal with particular infrastructure challenges as and when they come along.

My sense is that this amendment is intended to hold the Government’s feet to the fire on delivering their diversification strategy. If that is the case, a reporting requirement of this nature is unnecessary. This House and the other place already have mechanisms to hold the Government to account through parliamentary questions, as I said, and through the various Select Committees that can ably scrutinise this work. That is the appropriate way for scrutiny to take place.

Our second objection relates to focus. This is, first and foremost, a national security Bill. It is intended to strengthen the security and resilience of all our public telecoms networks, be they fixed line or mobile—2G, 3G, 4G, 5G and beyond. While the Government’s 5G telecoms diversification strategy has been developed to support that objective, it is not the sole objective of the strategy. This is market-making work. It is not a panacea to raise the security of our public networks. Moreover, the current scope of the strategy is not to address the entire telecoms market but to diversify a specific subset of it. The amendment extends the Bill beyond its intended national security focus and creates an inflexible reporting requirement on a strategy that will need to continue to evolve. We have been insistent on this position, and that is why I ask that this House disagrees with Lords amendment 4.

Lords amendment 5 would require the Secretary of State to review decisions taken by Five Eyes partners to ban telecommunications vendors on security grounds. In particular, it would require the Secretary of State to review the UK’s security arrangements with the vendor and consider whether to issue a designated vendor direction, or take a similar action, in the UK. I welcome the intention behind the amendment, which demonstrates that those in all parts of this House and the other place take the security of this country and its people incredibly seriously.

However, while we support the spirit of the amendment, we cannot accept it for four reasons. First, the House will recall that the Bill will provide the Secretary of State with the power to designate specific vendors in the interests of national security for the purpose of issuing a designated vendor direction. In clause 16 there is a non-exhaustive list of factors that the Secretary of State may take into consideration when issuing these designation notices. That list illustrates the kinds of factors we proactively consider on an ongoing basis as part of our national security work. A decision by a Five Eyes partner, or any other international partner, to ban a vendor on security grounds could be considered as part of that process, so this amendment would require us to do something that has been part of the Bill from the outset.

20:45:00

Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
The key remark that the Minister made there was that it “could be” considered. We have seen the Government’s failures previously in relation to Huawei, so why should we have confidence moving forward that this will be any different?

Julia Lopez
I appreciate the hon. Member’s comments. When the Secretary of State is looking to designate a vendor, she will put that to the House to be scrutinised, and we will be scrutinised on this issue through the usual procedures that I have outlined in my previous comments.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I welcome the Minister to her place. If we look back over the past few months, even the past year or so, we see very much that the resistance early on by the UK Government with Huawei, when other Five Eyes countries were banning it, has led to a remarkable back-cost for replacing all this stuff because we failed to take an early decision. While the amendment may not be perfect, it indicates clearly a big weakness in the Government’s position, even in this very good Bill. If Five Eyes countries, which are our main allies in intelligence, spot there is a problem, we should pause, investigate the reasons why, and then come back to the House with the reasons why we disagree or agree. The amendment aims at doing that, so perhaps the Government should think about amending the Bill in such a way.

Julia Lopez
I appreciate my right hon. Friend’s comments, but it is important that we do not put in primary legislation the specific partners that we should have to listen to on these specific issues. It would create a hierarchy of diplomatic networks.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith
With respect, these are not specific partners; these are our closest allies when it comes to intelligence sharing. They do not get any closer than this. Working with them, as we do in sharing intelligence, means that using systems for sharing that intelligence would corrupt our own ability. I wonder whether the Minister could just slightly reset: these are not just partners.

Julia Lopez
I appreciate my right hon. Friend’s comments. The amendment would require us to do something that has been part of the legislation from the outset. We believe that our existing approach is the right way to continually consider the decisions of our international allies and partners, whether or not they are part of Five Eyes. That brings me to the second objection to the amendment, which is that it is unnecessary because we regularly engage with our Five Eyes partners and are committed to a close and enduring partnership with them. We agree with the other place that where possible, the UK Government should consider the actions of other countries when developing our own policies, and that is exactly what we do already. It is what we have been doing before and during the passage of this legislation.

The intelligence and security agencies across Five Eyes retain close co-operation, which includes frequent dialogue between the National Cyber Security Centre and its international partners. This dialogue includes the sharing of technical expertise on the security of telecoms networks and managing the risks posed by high-risk vendors. There are mechanisms in place for the NCSC to share this and wider information with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

Collaboration with our Five Eyes partners forms an intrinsic part of our national security work. The alliance was not created through legislation and it has not required legislation for us to develop and strengthen that relationship, and the amendment would set an unhelpful precedent. We do not need the amendment to compel us to work with our Five Eyes partners.

That takes me to our third reason for resisting the amendment, which is that the UK needs to have the flexibility to develop and encourage international relationships in addition to Five Eyes. Naming individual countries in this way would set an unhelpful precedent for national security legislation in future. As I have acknowledged, it is important that we consider the policies of our Five Eyes partners, namely New Zealand, Canada, Australia and the US, when developing our own policies, but we also need to consider the policies of a wide range of other countries, including those of our European neighbours, such as France and Germany, and those of other nations, such as Japan, South Korea and India. Stipulating in primary legislation the countries whose policies the UK Government should consider when developing our own national security policies, whether Five Eyes or other countries, would be unhelpful, given the wide-ranging nature of our international collaboration. It would be highly unusual to refer to specific countries in legislation in this way, and this Bill is not the right place to create such a precedent.

The fourth reason for resisting the amendment is that it is impractical because of the many different ways in which other countries operate their national security decision making. The amendment would require us to act whenever a ban takes place in another Five Eyes country, but it may not be immediately clear when a country has taken a decision to ban a vendor, particularly if they have relied on sensitive intelligence to make that decision.

It may not always be apparent why a particular country has banned a particular vendor. There could be any number of reasons why a foreign Government would choose to restrict a company’s ability to operate within that country. Those reasons may not be based purely on national security grounds. I welcome the intention behind the amendment, but we cannot accept it because we feel that it is duplicative, impractical, restrictive and, ultimately, unnecessary.

In summary, the House is presented with a strengthened Bill as Lords amendments 1, 2 and 3 will increase the chances of parliamentary scrutiny of the telecoms security framework. As I have set out, however, it would be inappropriate to agree to Lords amendments 4 and 5. I thank the other place for its scrutiny of the Bill. I commend Lords amendments 1, 2 and 3 to the House and ask that the House disagrees with Lords amendments 4 and 5.

Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I thank colleagues in the other place who have worked hard to improve the Bill. National security is the first duty of any Government and Labour will always put our country’s security first.

The pandemic has shown how important telecommunications networks are. I declare an interest as a former telecoms engineer, but I am sure I speak for the whole House in thanking all those who have kept our networks going during the pandemic. We have been dependent on them to work from home or to keep in touch with family and friends. This House could continue its important work thanks to telecommunications networks, as well as the hard work of House staff and the Speaker’s support.

A secure network is of the utmost importance. Labour welcomes the Bill’s intention while recognising its limitations. I am pleased that the Lords amendments that we are discussing reflect issues that Labour has been raising.

Lords amendment 1 seeks to improve transparency in the use of the Secretary of State’s powers to issue codes of practice to communications providers through the negative procedure. It reflects amendments that we tabled in Committee in response to the sweeping powers that the Bill gives to the Secretary of State and Ofcom. As the Comms Council UK said,

“the Minister will be able to unilaterally make decisions that impact the technical operation and direction of technology companies, with little or no oversight or accountability.”

The House has a duty to ensure that those powers are proportionate and accountable, so we are happy that the Government have bowed to pressure from Labour to strengthen parliamentary scrutiny, even if, in our view, it does not go far enough. Two consequential amendments to Lords amendment 1 set out the conditions for the 40-day scrutiny period and ensure that that time cannot be disrupted by recess or Prorogation so that this House and the other place have sufficient time to scrutinise the code.

Lords amendment 5 is cross party and designed to ensure that the Government review a vendor that is banned in a Five Eyes country. We support the amendment and find the Government’s opposition concerning, as we believe it could threaten our national security.

I find the Minister’s arguments against the amendment somewhat confused. She claims that the amendment is unnecessary because we already monitor Five Eyes countries and would always respond to the actions of our closest intelligence partners, but if that is true, why not formalise it? We are stronger together, specifically with our Five Eyes allies. Instead of putting forward further arguments, I turn to the eloquent explanation of Conservative peer Lord Blencathra:

“All it asks the Government to do…is to review the security arrangements with a telecoms provider if one of our vital, strategic Five Eyes partners bans its equipment. We are not calling for a similar immediate ban, or an eventual ban, we are just saying let us review it and come to a conclusion.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 19 October 2021; Vol. 815, c. 99.]

We will support the amendment.

Lords amendment 4 requires the Secretary of State to report on the diversification strategy’s impact on the security of telecommunications networks. It would also allow for a debate in this House on the report to further strengthen parliamentary scrutiny. Labour supports the removal of high-risk vendors from our telecoms networks, and given the grave situation into which successive Conservative Governments have allowed our networks to fall, it is essential that the Government have the powers to remove Huawei at speed. However, we are left with only two providers, and as we heard repeatedly at every stage of this Bill’s progression, two providers is not diverse, is not resilient and is not secure.

We cannot ensure national security without a diverse supply chain, but I fear that the Government still just do not get it. Let me just take two of the Minister’s arguments. The first argument seems to be, as far as I could comprehend it, that requiring reporting would be “restrictive and premature”, but surely if the Government’s intention is to diversify the supply chain—and we have heard that we cannot have a secure network without a diversified supply chain—the only way a reporting requirement would be limiting is if the Government have no actual intention of doing anything about diversifying it.

The Minister’s second argument seems to be that this is too technologically specific. Lords amendment 4 says:

“The Secretary of State must publish an annual report on the impact of progress of the diversification of the telecommunications supply chain on the security of public electronic communication networks and services.”

Would the Minister tell me what in that is specific as to the technology? Indeed, the only specific aspect of technology is a requirement to include future technologies that may be used as a platform, such as cloud computing. I find the Minister’s reasons for not supporting this amendment concerning. I fear that the Government are just not serious about diversifying our supply chain, and that they do not really have a plan for it.

The Minister mentioned asking parliamentary questions. Just last week, I asked her what funding was available for 5G diversification, and she talked about

“a Future RAN Competition (FRANC) and opening the doors of the SmartRAN Open Network Interoperability Centre (SONIC Labs).”

I want to know how diversification is being achieved and how local sovereign UK capability is being built, not an acronym soup that is ad hoc, hard to digest and dangerously complacent.

Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
The hon. Lady is an expert in so far as she was, I understand, a communications engineer. As far as I understand it, there are three suppliers, but one of them we do not particularly want to use, and that leaves two. What other diversification can we do if we only have two? Can we try to build up something very fast, and is that what the hon. Lady is suggesting?

Chi Onwurah
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I promise not to take advantage of it to set out at length what we could be doing to diversify. I would just say to the hon. Gentleman and the House that we only have two suppliers for 5G now, but the technology is evolving and there are new technologies for the next generation of networks—6G. As he will well remember, we have gone through generations of technology at quite a pace over the last 20 years.

Right now, we should be investing in great UK technologies from companies and start-ups that are working in the field of open RAN and other technologies. Rather than having just one vendor supplying a whole network, as has been the case with Huawei and others, we would have a diverse mix of vendors at every stage of the network—the core and so on—which would enable much greater resilience. We could be doing that. The technologies are there now, and with the support of a forward-looking Government, we could ensure that leaders in those technologies were UK companies. We would therefore have not only a resilient network, but a network with local capability, because I remind the hon. Gentleman that there is no UK capability or UK vendor in this area right now. That is what I hope to see from the Government. Network diversification should be a fantastic opportunity to support innovative start-ups around the country.

Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree it is a pity that the Government got rid of the industrial strategy group that helped to advise on these expert issues?

21:00:00

Chi Onwurah
As always, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and as a telecoms engineer, it has been sad to see the lack of an industrial strategy for our telecommunications capability, which strengthens our UK capability. We have excellent engineers and excellent research. We should be leading in future telecommunications capability, and an industrial strategy would ensure that was the case. It would also help collaboration with our allies. For example, the US does not have a vendor that can provide our 5G networks at the moment, and collaboration with our allies and an industrial strategy or plan could make such a difference globally and locally to our security and economic strength.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith
Is the main point in all of this that this was not a market failure? Although an industrial strategy is important, in reality this is a national security failure. Huawei has undercut the market progressively for nearly 15 years through its subsidies, breaking every rule and driving every company out of business. The single biggest problem we face is having a proper functioning market that requires those involved in it to obey the rules. China does not, and everyone has paid lip service to that. Is that the real problem?

Chi Onwurah
I both agree and disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. I agree totally that national security is not a function of the market, and the fact that we have a network that is not secure is not a market failure but a failure of government and foresight. China had an industrial strategy. That is why it has a vendor in all the networks across the world—

Sir Iain Duncan Smith
To break the rules—

Chi Onwurah
Not to break the rules, but to work with other nations whose values we share, and in the long term to develop and support companies in this area.

Mr Kevan Jones
Does my hon. Friend also agree that this did not come as a great shock to the Government? It was all laid out in the 2013 Intelligence and Security Committee report on critical national infrastructure, but nothing has been done since then.

Chi Onwurah
My right hon. Friend, as always, makes a really good point. That is where an industrial strategy would have come in. It was predicted and we had time to build up alternatives. To go from having Huawei as one vendor among others that had small parts of our network, to our network being so dependent on it, took time. We could have used that time better to secure our networks and our own capability. The Government are bodging this. They are leaving it to the market when national security is not a market function. Labour has consistently welcomed the Bill, but it is only a small step towards achieving a truly secure and robust telecommunications network. In 2010 the Tories inherited a secure, competitive and world-leading network. It is now insecure, uncompetitive and bumping along the bottom. The Government have wasted 11 years, with huge delays in the second and third-generation fixed broadband roll-out, pushing us down the bottom of the OECD tables. Telecommunications are essential to our national security and economy, and we hope the Government will take this opportunity to recognise that.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I am introducing a four-minute limit. There is hardly any time in this debate, and the votes will come no later than 9.37 pm. If people can be even pithier than four minutes that would be helpful.

Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
First, I must declare that I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on new and advanced technologies.

I have here—switched to silent, I hasten to add—my mobile phone, on which are all my apps. Just going through them gives us an idea of the flood of information about me that is now carried through telecommunication networks. I have my train app, my Uber app, my Bolt app and my Uber Eats app—as you can see from my waistline, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have my bank accounts. I have my Tesco Clubcard. I have my Signal and my WhatsApp. I have my Instagram. I have my tickets for sporting events. I have my apps for parking and for booking restaurants, and apps to read newspapers. I have apps for—heaven forbid—my golf handicap; unfortunately, it is really high. I also have my bet365 app—the less said about that, the better. I have apps for health and I have apps for my mental health.

In short, someone can see from my phone where I eat, what I spend, who I associate with, where I have been, where I am going to be, my financial status, my credit worthiness, whether I am an insurance risk, even whether I like a curry or a pizza—or, frankly, whether I am happy or sad.

Much of this is truly wonderful, and we have seen through the pandemic how technology has advanced 10 years in just 18 months. But you ain’t seen nothing yet, Mr Deputy Speaker. I expect that we will have the use of biometrics, the linking of data, and artificial intelligence. This is more than the railroad of the 21st century; it is redefining the way we interact with one another, and how the state protects and interacts with us. You do not need an aircraft carrier if you can subvert telecommunications. It is imperative that the Government ensure that our national security is not breached in this way. That must be woven into the plan that we have for the future of data and the interaction between the state and the individual. This Bill is the start of that process, although admittedly it is very late in the day, after many false starts.

Moving on to the Lords amendments, I am pleased that the noble Lord Parkinson tabled Lords amendments 1, 2 and 3 in the other place on behalf of the Government. As new technologies emerge and security threats change, it is only right that Ministers have the ability to introduce new codes of practice to bring legislation up to date. However, through the application of the negative resolution procedure, right hon. and hon. Members will be able to provide parliamentary scrutiny to the new codes where necessary.

I have great sympathy with the thrust and intention of Lords amendments 4 and 5, although I wonder whether Lords amendment 5 is slightly gilding the lily. I would hope that any Government worth their salt would take very seriously the approach of our closest security partners, so I wonder whether that really needs to be in law at this stage. However, Lords amendment 4 on network diversification is very strong, and I am minded not to support the Government on it tonight. Frankly, I think it would advance things and set a really good marker in that respect.

This is absolutely necessary law. It is very late in the day, and it has been a very difficult process, but we must now focus on the fact that this is not the end but the very beginning of the way we underpin our society in terms of how we protect our data and our telecommunications.

Stephen Flynn
I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), although now I am really interested to know whether he prefers a curry or a pizza. When I came into the debate, I did not expect that to be the topic of discussion.

I am very conscious of time, and I know that a number of people on the Back Benches would like to make contributions to this incredibly important debate. However, I will take the opportunity to set out the SNP’s views on Lords amendments 4 and 5 and, importantly, briefly to reflect on why we are in the situation that we are in. Actually, that kind of ties in to Lords amendment 5: it is because of the mess that the Government have created in relation to Huawei.

When I first came into the House—pre-pandemic, of course—one of the biggest issues being discussed was the situation with Huawei and the flip-flopping that the Government were doing. I respectfully suggest that, in relation to Lords amendment 5, it is almost akin to the fact that they have learned nothing. There is an opportunity before them to ensure that they work with key intelligence partners, as the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) said, to ascertain where the biggest threat sits. But rather than take cognisance of what has been said in the other place, they are simply saying that the plan, as they have it at this moment in time, is good enough. That, from my perspective, simply does not cut it, especially, as we have heard, when some £2 billion has already been wasted on this debacle, notwithstanding the economic impact of being so many years behind in the roll-out of 5G itself. That, in many senses, covers Lords amendment 5.

On Lords amendment 4 and diversification, I will not repeat the exact detail of the amendment because that was done so eloquently by the shadow Minister, but I was a little bit surprised at what the Minister said. If I got the scope of it correctly, she was saying that Lords amendment 4 is far too narrow and would make the Government’s life too difficult. However, the amendment did not seem to suggest that when I cast my eyes on it. In fact, if I read it correctly, in the other place the Government’s position was that the framework was already sufficient, so the Government do not even seem to have clarity between the other place and this place on their actual position. I do not think that that is necessarily a surprise, because they are just looking for a reason not to back an incredibly helpful amendment.

Those are the views of the SNP on the two more contentious amendments. I look forward to the Minister perhaps providing the clarity that the Government have not been able to provide so far. I also look forward to hearing what our esteemed Back Benchers have to say on these matters.

Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow all the Back-Bench speeches so far.

I would like to blaze in capital letters what the Minister said:

“This is, first and foremost, a national security Bill.”

Something very similar was said when the National Security and Investment Bill—now the National Security and Investment Act 2021—was going through this House and the other place earlier this year. The Intelligence and Security Committee is, as it always has been, a non-partisan organisation. I will therefore be saying some things to please and, probably, to annoy both sides.

The Committee considered the five amendments at a recent meeting. We agreed that the entirety of Lords amendments 1 to 3 was broadly beneficial. We looked at Lords amendment 5 and we understood the temptation to flag up the importance of the Five Eyes relationship. We agreed—it is interesting how closely our deliberations, without consultation, conformed to the views of the Chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight)—that it was, as he put it, a case of gilding the lily, because whenever a serious objection is raised on security grounds by one of the Five Eyes partners, we take that with the utmost seriousness. That leaves us with Lords amendment 4. For the life of us, we cannot understand why the Government are opposing it. We believe it would strengthen parliamentary scrutiny and provide a valuable annual stocktake on the progress being made on the diversification strategy and how it is helping to improve national security. Therefore, like the Chairman of our parallel Committee, I will not be voting against Lords amendment 4 tonight.

Where does that leave us as a Committee in terms of the two Bills and the amendments thereto? You may recall, Mr Deputy Speaker, that there have been intense arguments both in this place and in the upper House about the failure of the Government to accept amendments that would allow the Intelligence and Security Committee to scrutinise closely the secret aspects that are inevitably involved in those two Bills. I will not digress on this both because I lack time and because you, Mr Deputy Speaker, would instantly call me to order. I will simply say, on ensuring that there is ISC scrutiny of the classified elements that follow from this legislation, that arguments have been advanced by the Government in the other place to say, “Well, the face of the Bill isn’t the place to do it.” We agree with that now; we are taking the Government at their word. Therefore, we have written to the National Security Adviser and asked him to take up the issue with the Prime Minister, so that the memorandum of understanding between the Prime Minister and the ISC can be brought up to date to cater for the provisions of this Bill and the earlier Bill that should be part of our purview. That is what the Government promised in 2013 when the legislation was originally put through, for our Committee’s powers, and it is a promise that we expect them to keep.

21:15:00

Mr Kevan Jones
I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), who took the Bill through Committee very ably. Sadly, he was a victim of the cull of competence in the last reshuffle, but his approach to the Bill was refreshing.

The Bill is important and, as a member of the ISC, I fully support it, but aspects of it need improving. Lords amendment 4 on the diversification strategy is vital. I was not reassured by the Minister telling us that this would be kept on track. When people try to give the impression that the issue of telecoms security suddenly hit us like a bolt out of the blue because of Huawei, I suggest that they read the 2013 ISC report on critical national infrastructure. What was going to happen was all laid out there, and nothing did. I think that without this annual stocktake, as the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said, there will be a tendency for future Governments to take their eye off the ball in terms of pushing forward the agenda that ensures that we are never again in a situation where we are beholden to, in this case, Huawei or any other vendor.

I have no problems with Lords amendments 1 to 3, but I think the Minister rather oversold this in saying that it is a demonstration of the Government’s commitment to parliamentary scrutiny. I accept that to a limited degree as it pertains to the codes of practice, but as the right hon. Member for New Forest East outlined, there is an issue that should concern Members on both sides of the House with this Bill and the National Security and Investment Act, in that there are elements of security now in two Departments that will not be able to be scrutinised by any Committee other than the ISC. As he outlined, although we have tabled probing amendments here and in the other place, we have given the benefit of the doubt to the Government, because of reassurances that scrutiny will be forthcoming. However, I say to the Minister that I would like a commitment tonight that she will feed that point back, because without this, no other Committee will be able to deal with the secret aspects involved. I have spoken to members of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, who are still trying to wheedle out of the Government their memorandum of understanding about what they can and cannot see, and that does not bode well. This is one thing that we will come back to, if it is not done now.

The ISC has so far been constructive and responsible in the way in which it has approached this issue. It is now in the hands of the Prime Minister to ensure that the memorandum of understanding is amended and is, as the Chair of the ISC said, in line with the Justice and Security Act 2013, which envisaged that we would have oversight if security went into other areas. Without that, these matters will lack the scrutiny that they rightly need.

Bob Stewart
I, too, speak as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. My comments will be short, because my time is limited, but many of the views that I will express have already been stated by other hon. Members.

As the House has heard, the ISC broadly supports the Bill, although it remains concerned about the Bill’s lack of a role for it in providing parliamentary oversight of parts of the legislation that Select Committees are unable to supervise. The ISC has made that point to the Government, but they do not accept it.

As a Committee, we want this legislation and will not push the issue, but we retain reservations about the matter not being part of the Bill. However, as the Chairman of the ISC—my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis)—and other hon. Members have said, we have written to the National Security Adviser to suggest that the matter be addressed in a revised edition of the Committee’s MOU, which comes from the Prime Minister. Otherwise, we consider that there will be gaps in the supervision available to Parliament—that is our main point.

The Committee fully supports the changes to clause 3 in Lords amendments 1 to 3 about codes of practice and the new wording after clause 23 in Lords amendment 4. With regard to Lords amendment 5 on Five Eyes review, we believe that the intelligence community will naturally consider the views of Five Eyes partners as part of its reporting, so the new clause, although worthy, is not really necessary.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I am extremely grateful for your pithiness.

Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Bill seeks to enhance security provisions that all Members of this House must recognise are much needed. Clear consensus has been achieved—it has been hard-fought—that cyber-attacks on the telecommunications infrastructure pose a significant threat to national security and that legislation is needed to strengthen the security framework. The Government and the Minister are endeavouring to protect the state and its citizens. This is an absolutely necessary law that will make a clear improvement, but more can and must happen.

I believe that the Bill is needed not only to safeguard this great nation from cyber-terrorism, both domestic and external, but to ensure that we can continue to attract jobs and investment from those who seek to utilise the skills and experience of our workforce. As I have said numerous times in this House, Northern Ireland is fast becoming the cyber-security centre of the world, with companies from Europe, America and elsewhere making use of our low business rates and our high skillset. To continue to attract that investment and those jobs, we must really be on top of our game; I believe that the Bill will play an important part in that. Could the Minister give some indication of her discussions with Ministers in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the Bill’s economic benefits for all regions, particularly Northern Ireland?

We all want to secure jobs, but we cannot allow any and all companies to have access to our networks. I believe that the protections in the Bill are imperative against those who may unscrupulously seek to carry out espionage on either a corporate or a national security level. Along with many others, I had concerns about the Huawei deal and its impact on the essential Five Eyes agreement; I was pleased by the decision that the Government ultimately made for all our security. There is a lesson to be learned and I trust that we have all learned it.

I agree that it is imperative that a clear and precise code of conduct is permitted, so I support the Government’s further amendment to ensure that a code of conduct is encompassing and far-reaching. That is right and proper, and I fully support it.

Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
I rise to speak in favour of Lords amendment 5, which was tabled by Lord Alton and Lord Blencathra.

The Five Eyes alliance is one of the most important strategic alliances that the UK shares. It is one of the world’s most comprehensive intelligence-sharing alliances, bringing together nations that have a strong bond forged through our shared history and values. The Government have recently taken a great stride towards strengthening our relationship with two of our Five Eyes partners, Australia and the United States, through the AUKUS agreement. I believe that Lords amendment 5 would further strengthen our ties with those great allies and ensure that we look to the future of the security and resilience of our telecommunications network.

Telecommunications networks have become the foundation of our economy, allowing business, Government and communities to connect and share information. This ability to connect and communicate is now a fundamental part of the way in which our society operates. Only last year, however, the Government were still considering using the services of a Chinese company, Huawei, to manage the introduction of 5G technology in our country. That was deeply worrying, owing to the complete subservience of the Chinese tech companies to the Chinese Communist party. The unholy alliance of these so-called private companies and an authoritarian Government who have no respect for basic values such as privacy has allowed the CCP to increase internal surveillance to a level never seen before. We would be foolish to think that the CCP would not have used its access to the information accumulated by Huawei through its involvement in our 5G roll-out, given the immense levels of intelligence that it would have been able to gain from that.

This debacle of Huawei shows that we must be extremely careful in protecting the security of our vital infrastructure. Letting companies that are so intertwined with a malign Government manage the implementation of our telecommunications systems would be no less than an act of national self-harm. If one of our close strategic allies makes the decision to ban a telecommunications company from operating within its borders, it will have a good reason for doing so. Taking the time to consider the rationale for such decisions will cost us little, whereas I worry that not doing so could be catastrophic for our national security. I hope that this House will approve amendment 5, as it will send a clear message that technology companies that work against our national interest will not be allowed to operate in the United Kingdom. I hope that the Minister will reconsider the Government’s position.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I will be brief, as much has been said already. However, I want to say a bit to my hon. Friend the Minister about Lords amendment 4. I also, by the way, want to recognise my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), who is no longer a Minister but who was in charge of much of the Bill’s passage. I thought that he did an excellent job. It is a very good Bill which is long overdue, and there is much to praise in it.

I think that Lords amendments 4 and 5 are worthy of a little more assessment. Lords amendment 4 does have merits, because it recognises that there is a real problem about diversification. The point that I was trying to make to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) earlier was not an argument against any kind of strategic review or industrial policies; it was the argument that if a nation is in a sense rogue, in terms of its ability to stay within the market, and subsidises companies deliberately for strategic effect, that is why the number of companies will fall from 15 to three in the free world, which is what happened in this case. I think the amendment is about the need to recognise the fact that diversification, if not pursued deliberately, will lead us into the hands of a country like China, which then forces us eventually to have only one vendor on price, because that country has subsidised it.

As for Lords amendment 5, I heard the argument of my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, but I would not regard this as “gilding the lily”. I do not much like lilies and I think they could do with a bit of gilding, but I think that this is more a case of locked doors, and if the amendment is about putting an extra door into the security panoply, I think it is important. I will be brief, but last year, along with many others, I had very strong arguments with the Government about Huawei, and we were disregarded, disregarded, disregarded. The Government even led out all the great security experts who told them that they could control everything, saying, “Don’t worry, we can manage the risk”—until it finally became apparent to them that they could not. We faced that at the time. Other Five Eyes members had already said that this was not on, but we seemed to disregard their views. So I simply say that this is not about gilding the lily; it is about reminding the Government that they must abide by these provisions.

I should also make the point that there are many other companies to which we should be giving real consideration right now, and which are being looked at and banned by the Five Eyes—such as Hikvision and ByteDance—and I urge the Government to think again about those as well.

Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
I want to thank the various Members who have paid tribute to my small role in this Bill. I say simply to the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) that I regard all reshuffles as an upgrade, so I welcome the Minister to her place. I mean that sincerely. I would also like to pay tribute to the officials—some of whom are in the Box today—who do not get enough credit for getting the Bill to the place that it is in. Ultimately, this is the Bill that will remove Huawei from our 5G network, and that is something that we should all welcome. It addresses a number of the issues that I raised and discussed robustly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) said, during the process of getting the Bill to this point.

21:30:00

Of the two amendments, one is about scrutiny of the Government’s position on telecommunications and on this Bill in particular. Ultimately, if there is one thing that this Bill has not been short of, it is scrutiny, whether in Westminster Hall or in this place or at oral questions. The Minister is also right to say that it will not be short of scrutiny in the future. I am sure that even the right hon. Member for North Durham will continue to be persistent in his desire to see telecommunications scrutinised more. So while I sympathise with the desire to put things on the face of the Bill, I have faith in this place and even in the Opposition to get on with scrutinising the Government. I know that the Intelligence and Security Committee will also continue to push its bid to scrutinise the Government even further than it currently does.

Secondly, on the position of the Five Eyes partners, those of us who have seen up close in Government just how hard the National Cyber Security Centre and the agencies work with our Five Eyes partners all know that the position that both Select Committees have come to is the right one, not only because it gilds the lily but because it acknowledges that our agencies do not look solely to the Five Eyes and that they look around the world in a way that is enviable, deep and broad. That gives us the benefit of huge expertise across the piece. In the case of both these amendments, at the risk of sounding as though I am still taking the role of a Minister, I do not believe that either of them is required. This is because I have faith in this place and in our agencies. I hope that the Bill will bolster our national security, and that it will do so without the benefit of these amendments.

Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)
I rise to speak in favour of Lords amendment 5, which was championed in the other place by my Friend, Lord Alton and which focuses on the Five Eyes partnership. The Minister said that the amendment was unnecessary, but I would argue that if she were to accept it, it would provide a safety net. Last year, the Government were forced into committing to removing Huawei equipment from the UK’s 5G network, which followed on from a ban by the US and Australian Governments. We had even found ourselves in a situation in which one of our closest allies publicly threatened to stop intelligence sharing with us for the first time in our 75-year partnership. I would argue that this amendment would ensure that we did not find ourselves in a similar place again.

Let me give the House an example. Despite being blacklisted by our closest ally for its ongoing links to the ongoing genocide in the Xinjiang, and a Chinese intelligence law which means that the company can not only harvest data but provide data back to the Chinese state, the surveillance company Hikvision continues to be embedded in councils, hospitals and city infrastructure up and down this country. Earlier this year, I led a Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee report, “Uyghur forced labour in Xinjiang and UK value chains”, which also looked at data harvesting. I was deeply unimpressed with Hikvision’s response, and I want to put on record that I thoroughly support the Foreign Affairs Committee’s recent recommendation that the Government should forbid Hikvision from operating in the UK. My Select Committee continues its work on Xinjiang, and I look forward to meeting TikTok in the near future.

The amendment would provide a fantastic safety net to ensure that we do not find ourselves in a difficult relationship with our Five Eyes partners again. Why would we want to risk that? I urge the Minister to recognise the motivation behind the amendment, which would enable trust and deepen our intelligence sharing alliances with our closest partners as well as ensuring security at home. I also urge the Minister, if she has the time, to read the “Uyghur forced labour in Xinjiang and UK value chains” report, and in particular to focus on article 7 of China’s national intelligence law, which states that any company that is registered in China has to provide data to the Chinese Communist party on demand, and also to deny to any other state that it is doing so.

Julia Lopez
With the leave of the House, I close this debate by thanking hon. Members for their contributions to the debate and for making a number of extremely important points about national security. I am keen to address those not only now, in this legislation, but in the future, through horizon scanning for some of the challenges that are coming up.

I appreciate that some of the trust in the system has been undermined by the Huawei situation, and I am sympathetic to concerns raised about reporting, diversification and resilience. My hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) is absolutely right that this legislation is just one part of a wider security framework. The development of 5G and full-fibre networks brings new security challenges, which we must be prepared for.

This legislation sets up a strong regime for handling and removing high-risk vendors from our public networks, but it is just the start. Specific security measures will be set out in secondary legislation; there will be a lot of work to do in the next stage as we draw up that legislation, and we will be publishing a code of practice explaining the technical guidance that providers can follow to comply with legal duties.

The final secondary legislation and code will be agreed through public consultation, which I hope will provide another opportunity for hon. Members who have concerns in this area to provide adequate scrutiny. I am alive to some of those concerns, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) has outlined, MPs and Peers have had multiple chances to scrutinise and feed back on our diversification strategy, and we will continue to report on developments.

Bob Stewart
I remind the Minister that the members of the ISC present tonight have written to the national security adviser on the revision of the memorandum of understanding from the Prime Minister to the ISC. We really do expect some changes to that, so that we can close the gap on supervision of things that other Select Committees cannot look at.

Julia Lopez
I thank my right hon. Friend for that point. This issue has been raised throughout the passage of the Bill; I am alive to those concerns from the ISC, which bring particular expertise and scrutiny on matters on which others cannot, by virtue of their security importance. I understand that the ISC’s Chair has written to the Cabinet Office on the matters raised, but I wish to engage with the Committee on its important work. I believe I may—

21:37:00

One hour having elapsed since the commencement of proceedings on the Lords message, the debate was interrupted (Programme Order, this day).

The Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair (Standing Order No. 83G).

That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 4.

Division 105
08/11/2021 21:37:00
The House divided:
Ayes: 276
Noes: 161
Question accordingly agreed to.

The Deputy Speaker then put forthwith the Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83G).

Motion made, and Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 5.—(Julia Lopez.)

Division 106
08/11/2021 21:51:00
The House divided:
Ayes: 273
Noes: 161
Question accordingly agreed to.

Lords amendment 5 disagreed to.

Lords amendments 1, 2 and 3 agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83H), That a Committee be appointed to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to their amendments 4 and 5.

That Julia Lopez, Heather Wheeler, Lia Nici, Duncan Baker, Chi Onwurah, Jessica Morden and Stephen Flynn be members of the Committee.

That Julia Lopez be the Chair of the Committee.

That three be the quorum of the Committee.

That the Committee do withdraw immediately.—(Craig Whittaker.)

Question agreed to.

Committee to withdraw immediately; reasons to be reported and communicated to the Lords.