Oliver Dowden tells MPs Chinese ‘state-affiliated’ organsiations behind cyber-attacks on Electoral Commission and on MPs
Oliver Dowden, the deputy PM, is making his Commons statement. He says it is about malicious cyber activity directed at the UK by actors affiliated to the Chinese state.
He says Chinese state-affiliated actors have been involved in two cyber-attacks on the UK: the hacking of the Electoral Commission, and attacks aimed at parliamentarians.
He says international partners, including the US, will be making statements today about similar Chinese cyber-attacks they have suffered.
Key events
Keir Starmer and Vaughan Gething, the new first minister of Wales, gave a brief interview to WalesOnline today while they were on their visit to Holyhead. According to the write-up, much of it consisted the two leaders giving slightly evasive answers about the prospect of the plan to build an M4 relief road in south Wales being revived.
When Mark Drakeford was first minister, he ruled out the idea on environmental grounds.
At the weekend Ken Skates, the new transport secretary in Gething’s cabinet, gave an interview implying there could be a rethink in relation to some road schemes that have been blocked. He was fairly clear that the M4 relief road plan would not be resurrected (“I just can’t see that happening – the cost would just be astronomical”). But David TC Davies, the Welsh secretary, responded to the Skates interview by claiming that if money were the only problem, Westminster might be willing to help out – thereby implying this could be an election issue.
Starmer and Gething both stressed to WalesOnline that they wanted more infrastructure investment in Wales, while not saying anything to suggest that an M4 relief road would be on their list. “David TC Davies may say he wants to sit down and talk to us but that isn’t the relationship we find with the UK government,” Gething said.
Carol Monaghan (SNP) asks about the threat posed by electric cars manufactured in China to the UK.
Dowden says cars would have to meet UK safety standards. And he says the government can block investments on security grounds.
Back in the Commons Vicky Ford (Con) says she is very concerned about the physical safety of MPs. She says on Friday last week the security guards she was advised to have at her constituency surgery did not turn up. That was the second time this year this has happened, she says.
Dowden says the government takes threats to MPs exceptionally seriously. He says he will take his issue up.
Chris Law (SNP) asks why anyone can trust the government when it has been “far too late” responding to the threat from China.
Dowden does not accept that. He says he has consistently warned about the threat from China.
Dowden dismisses Labour questions about Cameron’s China links as ‘desperate stuff’
Stephen Kinnock (Lab) asks about David Cameron’s visit to Sri Lanka to back a Chinese investment scheme. He says the Foreign Office has not replied to Freedom of Information requests about this. Will Dowden ensure it does?
Dowden says this is “pretty desperate stuff”. He goes on:
Trying to link Chinese cyber-attacks to our our current foreign secretary just doesn’t wash.
Here is our story on the Dowden announcement by Pippa Crerar and Eleni Courea.
Richard Foord (Lib Dem) says after the Salisbury novichok attack 130 Russian diplomats were expelled from over 25 countries. Why has there not been a similar response this time?
Dowden says there will be an international response. He says the US and other countries are making their own statements, even now or very shortly.
Stuart C McDonald from the SNP said, judging from the statement, Dowden “has turned up at a gunfight with a wooden spoon”.
Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, said “it’s abundantly clear that China is a hostile state and poses an unprecedented threat to our national security”.
She said she was in charge of passing the National Security Act. There was a “compelling case” for putting China in the enhanced sphere for scrutiny.
Dowden says goverment still trying to reach agreement on whether to submit China to ‘enhanced’ scrutiny under National Security Act
The Conservative MP Tim Loughton, who like Iain Duncan Smith is one of the MPs sanctioned by Bejiing, says he is “underwhelmed” by the statement.
He asks if China will be put in the enhanced sphere under the National Security Act 2023, meaning that people acting on its behalf in the UK would be subject to enhanced scrutiny in recogniton of the threat they posed. (See 9.31am.)
Dowden says the government is currently in the process of getting “collective government agreement” on the enhanced sphere decision. He says the evidence he has produced today “will have a very strong bearing on the decision that we make”.
Dowden describes anti-China measures as a ‘first step’ after being urged to describe Bejiing as ‘threat’
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, describes the statement as akin to “an elephant giving birth to a mouse”.
He says the Americans have sanctioned 40 people over Hong Kong; the UK has sanctioned no one.
It is no longer acceptable to describe China as an “epoch-defining challenge”, he says. (See 11.49am.) He goes on:
They are surely a threat. Can [the goverment] now correct that so that we all know where we are?
Dowden says these measures are only “a first step’. He goes on:
The government will respond proportionately at all times in relation to the facts in front of it.
No one should be in any doubt about the government’s determination to face down and deal with these threats to our national security from wherever they come.
Dowden is replying to McFadden.
He says it is for China to explain its motives.
On the Electoral Commission, he says the Chinese did not access the closed register – the names of people whose names are not on the public register.
On David Cameron, he says the normal propriety checks were carried out before he was appointed.
And, on Cameron’s appearance at the 1922 Committee later, Dowden says that will be a wide-ranging meeting, and not a specific briefing on China. He suggests that, if opposition parties want a briefing on China, they might be offered one.
Pat McFadden, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, is responding now.
He says Labour will support the government in protecting democracy.
He asks why the government thinks China wanted to hack the electoral register.
He asks if it is thought that China will be engaging in the sort of “hack and leak” activities that Russia has been engaged in.
And he asks what the governmnet has done to investigate the suggestion in the intelligence and security committee’s report that David Cameron’s role as vice president of a UK-China investment fund was “in some part engineered by the Chinese state to lend credibility to Chinese investment, as well as to the broader China brand”.
Dowden says the Chinese ambassador is being called in to be held to account over these incidents.
But he says the government “does not accept that China’s relationship with the United Kingdom is set on a predetermined course”. He says what happens in future depend on the choice China makes.
New guidance is being issued to political organisations about what they need to do to protec themselves from cyber-attacks, he says.
He says the UK’s political proceses have not been harmed by these attacks.
The government will continue to call out this activity in the strongest terms, he says.
He ends by saying:
The cyber threat posed by China-affiliated actors is real and it is serious. But it is more than equalled by our determination and resolve to resist it.
Dowden says cyber-attacks show ‘clear and persistent pattern’ of ‘hostile intent’ from China
Dowden says the Electoral Commission was subject to a complex cyber-attack between 2021 and 2022.
But this will not compromise elections, he says.
And he says there was a second cyber-attack, “almost certainly” from the Chinese state-affliated group APT31, aimed at UK parliamentary accounts. He says the attack was blocked by parliament’s cybersecurity system and was “wholly unsuccessful”.
But targeting MPs like this is “wholly unacceptable”, he says.
He goes on:
Taken together, the United Kingdom judges that these actions demonstrate a clear and persistent pattern of behaviour that signal hostile intent from China. That is why the United Kingdom has today sanctioned two individuals and one entity associated with the Chinese state affiliated APT31 group for involvement in malicious cyber activity.
Oliver Dowden tells MPs Chinese ‘state-affiliated’ organsiations behind cyber-attacks on Electoral Commission and on MPs
Oliver Dowden, the deputy PM, is making his Commons statement. He says it is about malicious cyber activity directed at the UK by actors affiliated to the Chinese state.
He says Chinese state-affiliated actors have been involved in two cyber-attacks on the UK: the hacking of the Electoral Commission, and attacks aimed at parliamentarians.
He says international partners, including the US, will be making statements today about similar Chinese cyber-attacks they have suffered.
