Cabinet rift over Huawei spying risk

TENSIONS have emerged in Cabinet over how to respond to the security risks posed by the Chinese Telecoms giant Huawei amid signs that spy chiefs believe any problems posed by the company are manageable.

The Commons science and technology committee wrote a month ago to Jeremy Wright, the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, and Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary, to seek reassurances about the risks from the company.

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat chairman of the committee, asked each of them if they were considering making mandatory the use of the Huawei cyber security evaluation centre (HCSEC), a government body that tests hardware and software updates supplied by Huawei.

At present, British companies may voluntarily make use of the body, which was set up in 2010 in response to security concerns about Huawei and is overseen by British spies from GCHQ.

Mr Lamb said last night he was surprised not yet to have received a response to his January 14 letter despite having had a substantive reply from Huawei. His committee is considering whether to hold a one-off evidence session or even launch a full inquiry.

“I don’t see any reason for them to delay any longer,” he said. “I hope to hear from them in the next week. We will wait until we have replies before making a decision about what further steps we should take as a committee.”

Mr Williamson has taken tough line on Huawei amid Ministry of Defence fears that the company’s involvement in Britain’s next generation mobile network will enable Chinese spying.

In December, he said that he had “grave” and “very deep concerns” about the organisation providing technology to upgrade Britain’s services to superfast 5G. And he indicated that a full review of security risks would be needed as he accused Beijing of acting “sometimes in a malign way”.

It was reported yesterday that he initially rejected proposals to write a joint response to Mr Lamb with Mr Wright and Mr Hunt, instead preferring to craft his own more robust reply.

The three ministers have since agreed to try to draft a joint letter, which is due to be sent this week, reiterating concerns about security risks.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the spy agency responsible for defending digital infrastructure, was said to have concluded that any risks posed by Huawei to the next generation of network are manageable.

Mr Lamb’s letter to Huawei set out four key questions regarding security fears, and asked for evidence to demonstrate that the company’s services posed no threat to the UK. In a six-page response, Ryan Ding, a Huawei executive, said: “Huawei has never and will never use Uk-based hardware, software, or information gathered in the UK or anywhere else globally, to assist other countries in gathering intelligence. We would not do this.”

♦ Last night the founder of Huawei said there was “no way the US can crush” the company. Ren Zhengfei described the arrest of his daughter, Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer, as “politically motivated”.

The US is pursuing criminal charges against Huawei and Ms Meng, which include money laundering and stealing trade secrets, which the firm denies.

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Ren said: “The world cannot leave us because we are more advanced.”