Undersea Cables: National Security Threat - Question

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 2:45 pm on 27 October 2025.

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Photo of Lord Coaker Lord Coaker The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence 2:45, 27 October 2025

There are certainly plans to do exactly as my noble friend asks. There certainly needs to be work on those plans, and they need some more detail to them, but there certainly are plans to do that. I have said a number of times from this Dispatch Box that the threats we face from others are now different in many respects from the threats we faced in the past. The disruption to data, the disruption to energy supplies and the disruption to communication are all part of the threat that we now face. Clearly, we are going to have to do more as a homeland to stand up against that. Part of it will require a conversation with industry, the public and the defence sector in order to protect ourselves.

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