Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)

My Lords, Amendment 454C seeks to increase the punishment for sabotaging an undersea cable to a 15-year prison sentence and an unlimited fine. This constitutes critical national infrastructure and we need a stronger deterrent, I believe—as do one or two others from the Back Benches who have probably been caught out by the loss of the previous amendment. Interestingly, one of Rishi Sunak’s early successes was a pamphlet on the subject for Policy Exchange, which he wrote with Admiral James Stavridis of the US Navy, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. Written in 2017, it helped to propel him into office and to his extraordinarily rapid advancement. As he said: “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 admiral said that “we have allowed this vital infrastructure of undersea cables to grow increasingly vulnerable”. A severe attack by a hostile actor “is potentially catastrophic, but even relatively limited sabotage has the potential to cause significant economic disruption and damage military communications”. Fast forward to last year, when I took a renewed interest in the subject with the release of a report by the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy. It found, as the Minister concerned said in reply to a question I asked last year, that: “The UK has plenty of cable routes and good repair processes for business-as-usual breakages”. However, it also 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 also be targeted in a crisis. It noted that there were various laws around telecommunications, notably the Submarine Telegraph Act 1885. These have low penalties—£100 for damaging a cable by culpable negligence—with only modest increases possible via secondary legislation. The report concluded that updated and “tougher criminal liability provisions might also help”. In response to the report in December, the Government argued that the National Security Act 2023 could be used, with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, but only if the activity was carried out by a foreign state or at the direction of a foreign state. Where this was not possible, it would be necessary to rely on the 1885 Act. That Act is plainly inadequate for today’s dangerous situation. As the time is late, I would like to cut to the chase and hope that the Minister might look positively at my simple amendment in these dangerous times. I beg to move.