Huawei contract to stay

Police Scotland has said it has no plans to remove banned Chinese mobile broadband products from its operations.

The UK Government decided earlier this week to strip all Huawei products from the country’s telecoms network by 2027, as well as banning companies from buying 5G kit from the company from the end of this year.

Scotland’s police force uses Huawei broadband devices to generate personal wifi hotspots, using local mobile networks, so they can access internet outside of office environments.

As BT moves to remove the Chinese company’s components from its network, Police Scotland said it had no intention of leaving its contract early.

A spokesman said: “Police Scotland uses mobile internet devices by the manufacturer Huawei with the internet service provided by Vodafone.

“This service does not directly connect to our network.”

China’s ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, said trust between the two nations has been “seriously damaged” by the ban.

GCHQ’s protective signals intelligence network has said it is on standby to detect and disrupt any attempt by China to mount cyber attacks on the UK in retaliation.