Rahima Mahmut

Mail: Crossbench peer Lord Alton, who co-sponsored the amendment with Lords Markham and Camrose, said: 'We need to be much clearer about who is threatening our security instead of playing footsie with hostile regimes. 'There's no point telling everyone to stock up on non-perishable foods and drinking water while we go on with business as usual with states that are launching daily cyber-attack” dailymail.com/news/article-1… Extract: Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB) “…So why have I signed Amendment 164? Part 4 of the Bill rightly equips the Secretary of State with formidable powers to issue directions in the interests of national security. Yet, as the Bill stands, those powers risk operating in a strategic vacuum. If we are to empower Ministers to intervene decisively to protect our essential services and our critical supply chains, that intervention must be anchored to an objective, statutory assessment of who threatens us. We cannot defend what we value against an adversary whom we refuse to formally identify. Amendment 164 provides that essential statutory spine by establishing a clear, maintained register of foreign powers that pose an acute risk to our critical network and information systems—something that came home to us last week with a notable attack on cyber systems. We do not necessarily know by whom, but we can no doubt guess. We certainly know that, in the past, the National Health Service was subjected to attacks: in that case the NHS was attacked by the regime in North Korea. Critically, this amendment does not create a political blacklist, though. It is not subject to diplomatic whim; it is an intelligence-led mechanism rooted in the hard, objective assessments of GCHQ. Where our intelligence agencies have confirmed that a foreign state or its proxies have perpetrated attacks against our essential services within the last seven years, or where they issue clear warnings of imminent peril, that state must be listed. The definition must be clear-eyed about modern authoritarian governance. In the People’s Republic of China, for instance, the state, the military and the Chinese Communist Party are inextricably fused. To assess state-backed cyber threats while ignoring the governing political party that directs them would be wilful blindness. This amendment closes that semantic loophole once and for all….For far too long, across successive Administrations, our critical national infrastructure has been treated with commercial naivety rather than strategic discipline. By requiring the Government to conduct this review and lay a coherent action plan before @Parliament within 6 months, this amendment ends the era of bureaucratic drift. Let me end by referring to the inquiry that I chaired on behalf of the @HumanRightsCtte into transnational repression. Our domestic policy’s failure is illustrated by the reluctance of the Government to act on the recommendation that the committee unanimously made to place the People’s Republic of China, which we found to be the state that was the most responsible for transnational repression in the United Kingdom, even more than Russia or Iran, in the foreign influence registration scheme’s top tier... I would be grateful when the Minister comes to reply if she is able to give us any information about whether @DanJarvisMBE , who is responsible for security issues and who promised to continue to keep this issue under review, has done anything further to act on our committee’s recommendations. Note too concerns raised by the Intelligence and Security Committee…Strategic ambiguity has been the order of the day, & does not deter authoritarian regimes; it merely invites opportunistic aggression. If we are serious about building genuine national cyber resilience, we must replace vague administrative discretion with an empirical, transparent & accountable framework. I urge Government to embrace this vital measure and to accept Amendment 164 @TomTugendhat @alexsobel Editorial:

Spoke at the launch of the excellent @ipac China Audit this evening in @UKParliament and suggested it should be sent to all Members of @HouseofCommons and @UKHouseofLords Chaired by @MPIainDS it was good to hear a variety of voices raised - including @TomTugendhat @Meg_HillierMP and @ChrisLawSNP - all highlighting the multiple threats posed by the CCP regime. Read here: nitter.cf/ipacglobal/status/2110…