Parliamentary Intelligence Committee piles pressure on Huawei decision

The Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee has unveiled a statement to rubbish delays put on the Supply Chain Review, demanding a decision ASAP.

In the same week as the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee suggested there are no technical reasons to ban Huawei, the Intelligence and Security Committee has demanded a sharp decision or risk losing a strong position in the digital economy.

“5G will transform our day to day lives – if it meets its full potential – and it could be key to our future prosperity,” a statement from the Committee reads. “Such an important decision therefore requires careful consideration. However, the extent of the delay is now causing serious damage to our international relationships: a decision must be made as a matter of urgency.”

While the UK fell drastically behind the norm when it came to adopting 4G, progress has been much more promising for 5G. While calling oneself a global leader usually means little coming from the mouths of groomed politicians, in this case the UK is a genuine leader in the 5G race. There are only a handful of nations who launched ahead of the UK and the opportunity to scale nationwide rapidly is certainly is present.

However, the Intelligence and Security Committee, chaired by Dominic Grieve, feel this is a position which is becoming increasingly vulnerable. The longer this review continues, the slower 5G expansion plans will be, and the greater the opportunity for fast-followers to catch-up.

That said, perhaps the biggest revelation from the Intelligence and Security Committee seems to be the implications to national security.

“However, the telecoms market has been consolidated down to just a few players: in the case of 5G there are only three potential suppliers to the UK – Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei,” the reports states. “Limiting the field to just two, on the basis of the above arguments, would increase over-dependence and reduce competition, resulting in less resilience and lower security standards.”

Despite many critics of Huawei suggesting inclusion of the firm in critical infrastructure would compromise national security, Grieve’s opinion is that reducing the number of available vendors would create more problems. Not only would the networks be more expensive to build, but resilience would be dampened as well.

As you can imagine, Huawei are relatively pleased with the report from the Committee.

“We agree that diversity improves resilience in networks,” said Victor Zhang, Vice-President of Huawei. “We’ve been a part of UK networks for 18 years. 5G is critical for the UK and is the foundation of tomorrow’s digital and mobile economy. Quite simply, it will improve people’s lives. Our priority has only ever been to deliver world-leading technology to our customers.”

This is the problem the Department of Digital, Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS), the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the wider Government, is facing. Not only does DCMS have to recruit a new Digital Minister after the resignation of Margot James, deal with Brexit and select a new Prime Minister, it has to come to decision on the role of Huawei in the 5G era.

This statement and the report from the Science and Technology Committee is piling up the pressure. The message is relatively clear, these distractions should not undermine the importance of coming to a conclusion on Huawei.

At some point, the UK Government is going to have to hurt someone’s feelings. Either the relationship between the UK and the US or China is going to be impacted. With Brexit around the corner, the UK needs to nurture relationships outside of the European Union, but unfortunately it is unavoidable here.

The pressure is mounting and soon enough the Government will have to make a decision. It has been able to procrastinate, but the more influential groups who press for a conclusion, soon enough the Government will have to show some progress.