The UK government is stepping up efforts to secure critical undersea infrastructure, as concerns grow over potential threats from Russia and China, according to Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Pollard reaffirmed the government’s commitment to protecting vital subsea assets, including internet cables and energy interconnectors.
“We are committed to maintaining and enhancing the security and resilience of critical undersea infrastructure,” he said.
“Just as the Defence Secretary called out the activities of the Russian spy ship Yantar hovering over our undersea cables, let those who threaten the UK or our allies be in no doubt that we will defend our undersea infrastructure. This is one area that the strategic defence review is looking at in order to enhance our homeland security.”
Nick Timothy MP (Con, West Suffolk) criticised the lack of a single Minister responsible for overseeing the security of undersea infrastructure, calling for greater clarity on who holds ultimate responsibility.
“In January, I asked the Defence Secretary which single Minister is responsible for the security of offshore infrastructure,” he said.
“We know that Russia and China target interconnectors and undersea cables, we know that Russia places listening devices on our wind turbines to monitor submarines, and we know that China controls the tech in the turbines that the Energy Secretary wants to buy.”
“The Defence Secretary could not answer me in January, and neither did the Prime Minister when I asked him earlier this month. When are we going to find out who is actually in charge?”
Pollard pushed back, stating that national security responsibilities are shared across departments but reaffirmed that the government takes the issue seriously.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the Prime Minister is responsible for the security of this nation, and he delegates different areas to different Departments. That is a completely normal way of dealing with our national security,” he said.
“Let us be absolutely clear: within Defence, we take this seriously and we work with colleagues across Departments to make sure that we are not only securing our infrastructure from a defence perspective, but using our trade routes to make sure that we are protecting and buying the right technology and using our planning system to make sure that, where there is development, it does not impinge on our national security.”
Bob Blackman MP (Con, Harrow East) raised concerns over the vulnerability of undersea fibre-optic cables, which carry 99% of global internet traffic. He urged the government to deploy autonomous minesweepers to protect subsea infrastructure, particularly in the Black Sea, should a Russia-Ukraine truce be reached.
“The Minister will be well aware that 99% of internet traffic is carried on undersea cables. Clearly the Russians and other enemies would seek to disrupt that, so will the Minister look at utilising autonomous minesweepers that could be deployed to protect our undersea cables?” he asked.
Pollard acknowledged the importance of protecting subsea cables, stating that new investments in autonomous defence systems are being considered as part of the upcoming Strategic Defence Review.
“The hon. Gentleman is right that subsea fibre-optic cables carry about 99% of our data—many people believe it is satellites, but it is cables,” he said.
“As a country, we are investing in new technologies and I expect that, as we get further towards the time when the defence review is published, he will see the ambition we have as a Government to invest more in autonomous systems, not only to support undersea cable protection, but to deal with the threat of Russian submarines and other capability, and other threats to our nations.”
So what he said was; no one is responsible, no one is in charge, so if the poo hits the fan, we can blame it on the previous government. It’s not our fault. We’ll wait for the defence review, then we can push the question/answer out even further. Nothing to see here. We are getting on with the job! Go away you ‘orrible little man.
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How does an un armed ship protect them, a farce like most things to do with military these days. Bluff, warm words but nothing else.
I’m sorry but the defence of this nation against state actors is the responsibility of the ministry of defence.. anything else is just fudging and arguing because of budgets and not wanting responsibility without adequate budge. If a state actor is attacking our infrastructure in our EEZ or national water or even the high seas it’s the responsibility of the ministry of defence to be able to defend against that attack or defend by offence.
Hi Johathan,
I don’t think is entirely true if we are abiding by international laws, which we claim to do. Some of the incidents have been carried out by civilian vessels dragging their anchors for example, that is a criminal act, although I grant you military forces could act in support of the civilian authorities. We also know that the ‘criminal act’ may well have been orchestrated by a state actor but I can see why we would want a range of responses other than military responses as we want to avoid escalating, especially given the current scramble for Europe to rearm.
Granted someone in defence could be fingered as lead for this but I suspect that they have enough on their plate just trying to put right the mistakes of the past. I do agree however that there should be someone at ministerial level coordinating across departments especially as there is a need for the infrastructure operators to participate in any preventative measures.
Defence certainly needs to pull its finger out an get more mother ships and drones deployed either in the RN and or in the RFA – along with sorting out all the necessary support functions…
Its a mess
Cheers CR
Hi chariot
This is the issue with the fact the treaty relates to undersea cables goes back to the 19c and wires where it was envisaged that the only damage would essentially be from incompetence from ships captains. Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables 1884. it never envisaged a world in which one nation could do massive damage to another through the use of an anchor …although within the treaty it does specify allow for a military base responsibility, infact outside of national waters the only response it allows is via commissioned warships ( essentially the only high seas authority this treaty recognises) as in a commissioned warship of any nation is allowed to stop and board a civilian ship on suspension of it damaging cables. It can than investigate, take statements and make a report to the nation that holds the flag of the ship for action to betaken in law ( private and criminal). Essentially national law enforcement agencies don’t actually have any power in regards to the treaty outside of direct national waters ( EEZ and high seas) So essentially cables within national 12 NM of our coast can be police/security forces..but anything beyond the 12NM limit has to be managed by a commissioned warship..
Thanks for that, mate, I wasn’t aware of that Convention. They certainly put a lot of effort into international law in the late 19c and early 20c. Shame it is getting torn up.
So there is a complicating factor here, namely the EEZ which are a relatively new construct..?
Either way the RN’s patrol force has primacy outside of our Territorial Waters with the Home Office responding to any information supplied by the RN. Territorial Waters given the nature of the threat it would seem sensible to keep with the same command responsibilities, so one of the junior ministers in the MOD should be fingered for the job… I don’t Def Sec. should head it up as it seems to be an operational matter all be it with significant geopolitical implications, latter justifying a junior minister’s oversight.
Given the Ministerial Structure within the MoD I think that would entail Eagle or Pollard getting lumbered, Coaker is in the Lords and Carns already has Veterans… Eagle seems to be the more senior.
However, I think that the MoD really should get a few more ships in the role ASAP. The MRS ships seem to be moving towards something much more fighty so likely to get called off to the high north, for example. So more ships like RFA Proteus with the ability to quickly receive self defence capabilities for if and when things get hot.
I did wonder if the recent incident in the North Sea against the US tanker was a deliberate act, Russian skipper with some of the crew also being Russian. Easy to make it look like an accident – one empty bottle of Vodka and most would accept an accident caused by gross negligence or manslaughter by gross negligence as is the case.
Cheers CR
CR, EEZ wise counts as international waters as per convention, have to say I agree with you on the greater need for RN patrol vessels.. if you look back to the 97 and the plans into the early 2000s along with 30 large surface combatants( 10 AAW destroyers, 10 ASW frigates and 10 GP frigates) the RN was meant to have around 10-15 EEZ patrol craft in the 2000-3000 ton range for MCM and patrol. The RN famously dropped the program to fund the autonomous mine warfare capability.. so essentially they swapped 10-15 3000 ton surface combatants for 5 rivers 2 and 5 plastic inshore Autonomous SEA class boats….
The very interesting thing about Proteus is that because it’s not a commissioned warships it does not have the legal right to intercept and board a merchant suspected of cutting a cable in international waters. This is one of the problems with using auxiliaries they cannot legally do a lot of things commissioned warships can.. now I’m going to get slagged off by a few people who continually refuse to accept what a lot of conventions and laws of war say about the limitations on auxiliaries but ships without commissions are more restricted in both how they can enforce legal powers in international waters under some conventions as well as undertaking and initiating belligerent actions…
Around that accident in the North Sea..stuff does happen at sea and ships do run into each other… but it was quite the bad luck that a Russian crewed merchant ship just happened to run into a ship chartered by the US government to carry jet fuel to Europe…