Sir Iain Duncan Smith: … Although the Huawei cyber-security evaluation centre was installed, when I sat and listened to people from it making a presentation to us earlier in the year, it was almost as though we were watching people who were kind of squeezing their own genuine, real opinion, which would have been coming via GCHQ, about how the real threat was formed. Their arguments did not stand up, even in the face of people who were not every day working on security.

The truth is we need to be careful, and it should have been a tighter position from the word go. The very fact that the Government are bringing this measure forward now suggests that that was not the case. [Interruption.] Listen, I am critical of my own Government. I resigned from the damn thing at one point. I have to say that I therefore do believe it is possible for great Governments, like mine, to get things wrong.

Dr Julian Lewis: In defence of the Huawei cyber-security evaluation centre, its sixth annual report, from September this year, is absolutely devastating in its criticisms of Huawei’s failures to be secure or to make improvements when insecurities have been highlighted.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith: I agree completely. The point is that when we were talking about this earlier on, it was clear that that was, underneath it all, the centre’s real opinion, but it was kind of moving and modifying. It was also used in a political way, by the way, which I did not think was right. An opinion is either there or it is not; do not get people in to brief Back Benchers about what they should be thinking. I thought that was wrong. ...

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Bob Seely: ... Huawei never was and never will be a private firm. It is 99% owned by the Chinese state via trade unions. When I heard Ministers – not this Minister, but others – using the line about Huawei being a private company, I felt that it was a deeply naive thing for the Department to say.

Dr Lewis:  Just for the record, a former Prime Minister said that as well, repeatedly.

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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Matt Warman): ... Let me cover one other aspect raised by the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). I look forward – maybe that is not quite the right phrase – to appearing before the ISC in the next few days. We will always co-operate with it, and I am very happy to work with it on the best way to balance the obvious requirement between transparency and national security, although we would always seek to be as transparent as we possibly can be within those important bounds.

Dr Lewis: I did ask a few questions. If the Minister cannot answer them now, by all means he should write to me. However, I am concerned about a situation where, for example, a former leader of the Conservative party and former Prime Minister has a major role in the China belt and road funding operation. How secure will Government be against lobbying of people with that sort of connection and prominence?

Matt Warman: I will simply say that the Government will always put our national security interests first, and of course we are always alive to the commercial interests of the companies that seek to engage with us in this matter or any other. I look forward to further engaging with my right hon. Friend and his Committee. ...

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[For Julian's speech in this debate click here]