L

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 1 September 2026

Debate

Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill

Contribution

My Lords, I apologise for having spent less time in Committee than I would have liked, but I have been speaking on the Public Office (Accountability) Bill. I am grateful to those noble Lords who I suspect have been speaking to amendments on my behalf. Amendments 15A and 15B are about the designation of critical suppliers. New Regulation 14H says: “A designated competent authority may designate a person … under this regulation if P supplies goods or services directly to an OES for which the authority is the designated competent authority”. The Bill expands this regime to cover additional organisations and creates a new framework for designated critical supplies. That is good, and it recognises that essential services depend on organisations that go far beyond the direct infrastructure of the critical organisation itself; everything is dependent on everything else. However, the critical supplier test is focused on suppliers providing goods or services directly to a regulated organisation. That ignores the concept of a supply chain with several tiers of suppliers. These amendments are intended to address that. Therefore, I beg to move.

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