UK government draws up plans to remove Huawei from 5G networks
The UK government is drawing up plans to force a full phase
out of Huawei from Britain’s 5G networks within three years, officials have
confirmed.
Downing Street has been under pressure from Tory MPs to
ensure that the UK’s telecoms networks — including 5G mobile phone
infrastructure — do not contain equipment from the Chinese company beyond 2023
because they believe this could compromise national security.
Boris Johnson, prime minister, in January granted the
Chinese telecoms equipment maker a limited role in supplying kit for the UK’s
5G networks, while capping Huawei’s market share to 35 per cent. The rules also
banned the use of the company’s equipment in the critical core of mobile
networks where data is stored and routed.
In March the government only narrowly defeated a Tory rebel
amendment designed to ban Huawei from UK networks completely.
Now the prime minister has instructed officials to tighten
restrictions on the involvement of the company in the new system to zero by
2023, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph, which officials have
confirmed. The newspaper reported that Mr Johnson always had “serious concerns”
about the 5G agreement, initially brokered by his predecessor Theresa May, and
now wanted it to be “significantly scaled back”.
One official said that circumstances had changed in recent
months: “The landscape is different and it’s right that we re-examine this
immediately.”
Mr Johnson is under pressure from Tory MPs to reset
relations with Beijing after the coronavirus pandemic, amid accusations that
the Chinese government did not disclose the initial scale of the problem.
Donald Trump, the US president, made clear his displeasure
at Mr Johnson’s decision to press ahead with the Huawei deal — albeit in a
scaled-back form — in January. Mr Trump threatened to restrict the UK’s access
to the Five Eyes intelligence system.
EE, Vodafone and Three use Huawei equipment in their 5G networks.
Switching to a rival supplier — such as Ericsson or Nokia — would slow down the
roll out and add costs for companies that need to replace Huawei equipment. BT
has estimated that the cost of complying with the 35 per cent cap would be
£500m.
Telecoms executives are frustrated that, despite an 18-month
review and the imposition of limits on the use of Huawei equipment, the issue
is still being debated politically. One said that a 2023 timeline was “too
aggressive” for a full phase out, and raised the issue of how such a switch
would be paid for.
Victor Zhang, of Huawei, said: “We’ve seen the reports from
unnamed sources which simply don’t make sense. The government decided in
January to approve our part in the 5G rollout, because Britain needs the best
possible technologies, more choice, innovation and more suppliers, all of which
means more secure and more resilient networks.”
The telecoms industry has warned that a full ban on Huawei
equipment would undermine the prime minister’s election pledge to deliver
superfast broadband to the entire country by 2025.
Mr Johnson signalled last week that he would accelerate
long-expected legislation to expand the number of foreign deals that are
examined by the takeover authorities. He is also stepping up plans to make the
UK more self-sufficient in products such as personal protective equipment, many
of which are currently sourced from China.
Tory MPs have been planning a renewed guerrilla strike
against the government’s Huawei policy this summer.
David Davis, the former home secretary, said the rebels
would try in the coming weeks to block Huawei if the government did not do so
itself.
“The Huawei policy may have been arguable pre-corona but I
don’t think it is any more, that may not be rational but the zeitgeist has
changed,” he said.
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