Speeches by Spencer.

“I thank the hon. Member for his point about balance. I am confident that this is an area to which the Committee will return quite a few times in our line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill, particularly clause 12, which relates to the designation of critical suppliers. Clearly the regulations need to be proportionate, but to…”

“That is something that I know will come up in debate as we go through the Bill. It is curious that we are receiving consistent feedback that some boards are not taking the issue of cyber-security seriously, in terms of allocating resource to it, especially in the light of the very high-profile cyber-attacks on business…”

“I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Taiwo Owatemi.)”

“I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 15, page 22, line 15, at end insert— “(f) whether the incident involves failure modes not previously observed in the relevant sector materially involving autonomous or adaptive systems based on machine learning, including where the potential impact of such failure modes was mitigate…”

“The scope and breadth of the organisations regulated by these provisions is one of the most important parts of the debate. If the hon. Member can wait a moment, that point will form the bulk of my speech. It was also mentioned by my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne. The previous Governme…”

“Clause 13 requires in-scope data centre operators to provide certain information to their designated competent authorities, which—subject to Government amendment 11, which we passed earlier—will now be solely Ofcom, and to keep that information up to date. The information includes the data centre operator’s address and…”

“I am very happy to give way on taxation.”

“The Minister is, of course, within his rights to snarkily dismiss the questions that I have raised, but I should point out that the stuff that is debated in Parliament, whether in Committee or on the Floor of the Chamber, is relevant when it comes to future legal disputes after a Bill is passed. The questions I have as…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“My hon. Friend has figured out what I am going to say in a moment, when it comes to the scoping of the regulator and that communication process. Such is the depth of the rabbit hole that the provision creates that, even though my hon. Friend’s intervention did not go where I thought she was going, another problem has j…”

“I really appreciate my hon. Friend’s intervention. It goes incisively to the heart of the concern about how these provisions are currently drafted. I really struggle to see how an OES that is providing a service to another OES could effectively argue that it is not within the full scope of these regulations. We have a …”

“I thank the hon. Member so much for that intervention about the time it would take to find an alternative supplier, because it will bring me on nicely to my point about alternative suppliers. However, before I move on to that point, the hon. Gentleman made a very good point in his intervention, which I will address. To…”

“This clause is one of the provisions that has given rise to widespread industry concern regarding its scope and implications. Business supply chains, particularly for large operators of essential services and multinational companies, are becoming ever more complex. The increased digitisation of service provision across…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Legal clarity is important. I have absolutely no issue with lawyers, but we do not want to make a load of money for lawyers as a consequence of the definitional challenges around the Bill’s implementation. That is not good for businesses, which need certainty as to how to ap…”

“On a point of order, Ms McVey. What mechanism is available to Members who are concerned that there is a factual error in the impact assessment? How can that be corrected?”

“The cloud providers tell me that the energy costs are crippling, which is highly problematic, and that is why we need to drive those costs down. They talk about the challenges of getting data centres built and about planning considerations, which are a concern across the country. They talk about the taxation environmen…”

“I broadly agree. This is one of those difficult areas where there can be overlap. I have sympathy with the argument that it is important to use any opportunity, and in particular this Bill, to raise fraud. We focus on financial fraud, but this area is not limited to that, especially when we think about other malicious …”

“Clause 8 provides a new definition of “relevant digital service” and makes it clear that this category includes online marketplaces, online search engines and cloud computing services. The definition of “relevant digital service provider” is updated to encompass all entities providing a relevant digital service in the …”

“Irrespective of their size, whatever definition or metric we use, businesses operate on fine margins for the majority of the time. Regulatory burdens not only impact their ability to operate; they are yet another cost, which means that the cost of services increases. That has a deleterious effect on our economy more ge…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for that pertinent intervention. The burden she talks about is not just financial; companies could also find themselves in legal jeopardy should they become subject to overlapping and competing duties without realising when the Bill becomes an Act. More than anything else—perhaps even more than a…”