Cyber-security

Cyber-defence is an important part of our national security, with daily attacks against Government, businesses and individuals. Members across the House will have seen the recent attacks against British household names such as Marks & Spencer and the Co-op and, indeed, the Government’s own Legal Aid Agency. Earlier this week, the Prime Minister announced that responsibility for public sector and Government cyber-security will sit with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. That will strengthen technological resilience by better integrating cyber-security and expertise into the Government Digital Service.

In recent weeks, we have seen a series of cyber-attacks on retailers, including on my former employer, Marks & Spencer, and on Government services such as the Legal Aid Agency. Will the Minister update the House on what discussions he has had with the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre and others to ensure that these incidents are dealt with as swiftly as possible and that more is done to prevent such attacks succeeding in the future?

Earlier this week, I met the chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, which works with impacted organisations to investigate what has happened and who is responsible and to help them rebuild. It has been working with all the organisations that have been hit by recent cyber-attacks. I also made a speech about these issues at the CYBERUK conference in Manchester a few weeks ago.

I thank the Minister for his answer. As has been mentioned, we have recently seen attacks against private institutions, with groups such as Marks & Spencer being targeted. I would be very interested to learn about the approach that has been taken by the statutory organisations and those in the military sphere, but I would like to know what efforts have been made to protect private businesses from cyber-attacks and to ensure that my constituents in Mid Dunbartonshire and people across the UK have access to their daily essentials.

The hon. Member is absolutely right. The National Cyber Security Centre offers advice, guidance and tools such as Cyber Essentials to businesses to help them prepare as best they can for attacks. Unfortunately, organised crime carries out some of these attacks, and the extortion of money is often at their root. It is really important that Government, business and individuals prepare as best we can to act against the bad actors who are trying to explore cyber-vulnerabilities and often, as I said, extort money.

I call shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

The Government’s own cyber experts Innovate UK have warned the Government that the proposed Chinese embassy at the Royal Mint threatens to compromise the telephone and internet exchange that serves the financial City of London. The experts are now telling the Government what everyone else has known all along: the super-embassy poses a super-risk. Yet the Deputy Prime Minister’s office has said that any representations on the planning application have to be made available to the applicants. Perhaps the real Deputy Prime Minister can clear this up: are the Government seriously saying that if MI5 or GCHQ have concerns about security on this site, those concerns will have to be passed to the Chinese Communist party, or has the Deputy Prime Minister got it wrong?

When it comes to both engagement with China and with an issue like this, we will engage properly while always bearing in mind our own national security considerations. The approach we do not adopt is to withdraw from engagement, which the previous Government did for a number of years—flip-flopping from that to the previous era that they called the golden era. We will engage with China when it is in our economic interest, but we will always bear our national security interests in mind.

The previous Government did not engage—sorry, they did not disengage. At the heart of this are two simple facts. First, the Government already know that this site is a security risk. It is a security risk to the City of London and, through it, our economy and the economies of all nations that trade in London. Secondly, the Government have the power to block it. Ireland and Australia have both already blocked similar embassy developments. Why are this Government too weak to act?

The hon. Gentleman was right the first time when he said that the previous Government did not engage enough. As I said, a decision on this application will be taken with full consideration of our national security considerations. Those considerations are always part of these decisions, and our engagement with China and other countries. Where I agree with him is that when it comes to national cyber-security, we must bear in mind state threats as well as non-state threats, and that is very much part of our thinking as we respond to what is going on in the cyber-sphere.

Hopefully Lancashire will help with that with the new centre at Samlesbury.