Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)

My Lords, it is the luck of the draw: I rise again, late in the evening, moving Amendment 438 in my name and those of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough, which we have adjusted in the light of the discussion in Committee. It would tackle serious sabotage of undersea cables by giving the Secretary of State the power to regulate for a 15-year prison sentence and an unlimited fine. In a very dangerous world, we need a strong deterrent, closer to that which already exists for the power sector. As I explained in Committee, this is a long-standing issue, well articulated in a 2017 pamphlet for Policy Exchange by Admiral James Stavridis of the US Navy, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander: “While few realise it, our ability to transmit confidential information, to conduct financial transactions and to communicate internationally all depend upon a global network of physical cables lying under the sea”. The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy released a report on the subject last year. It found: “The UK has plenty of cable routes and good repair processes for business-as-usual”. However, it found “particular vulnerabilities around the UK’s outlying islands, military cables and the financial sector”, with “a small set of high-value targets”. Onshore infrastructure was also a concern, with links to data centres “creating worrying levels of concentration”. All this infrastructure could be targeted in a crisis. In response to the report, the Government committed to increasing penalties for those who damage subsea cables where the activity cannot be clearly linked to a hostile state. I am glad to say that this can already be addressed under the National Security Act 2023. In Committee, and in a helpful letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Lloyd, at DSIT, the Government agreed to legislate in a more comprehensive way. That is welcome, but I have experienced such promises in relation to online harms legislation, which took eight years, so I remain nervous. The 1885 Act is plainly inadequate for today’s more dangerous security situation. Our amendment would leave responsibility for making changes to penalties in the hands of Ministers, requiring only a report to Parliament on the exercise of the power or, alternatively, legislation to modify the arrangements more comprehensively—and I know the latter is the direction of travel that the Government prefer. Our amendment’s strength is that it would ensure that something will actually happen in response to the Joint Committee’s worrying report. I hope the Minister can give us a more solid response this evening to avoid yet a further Division at this late hour. I beg to move.