MPS’ fury at ‘weak’ response to China over hack attacks

Ministers’ steps to counter threats from Chinese state-linked hackers are like turning up “at a gun fight with a wooden spoon”, the deputy prime minister was told yesterday.

Oliver Dowden told the Commons that Beijing had targeted the Electoral Commission and was behind a campaign of online “reconnaissance” aimed at the email accounts of MPS and peers.

He said two individuals and a front company linked to Chinese state-affiliated hacking group APT31 would be sanctioned as a result of the attacks.

But SNP Glasgow South MP Stewart Mcdonald told the Commons: “The deputy prime minister has turned up at a gun fight with a wooden spoon. The attack that he stood at the despatch box and announced happened three years ago, but he comes to the House and calls it swift.

“He comes to the House and says he has taken robust action, but … the entity he sanctioned has fewer than 50 employees and a turnover of £250,000 a year. He hasn’t sanctioned a single Chinese state official.”

Labour former minister Sir Chris Bryant said he found Mr Dowden “utterly unconvincing”, adding: “The idea that swift means taking three years to publish something which has already been published by a committee of this House is utterly preposterous.”

Former Tory home secretary Suella Braverman claimed China is a “hostile state and poses an unprecedented threat to our national security”.

She added: “As home secretary I oversaw the enactment of the National Security Act which built the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme designed specifically to deal with these threats so our authorities have the right powers to tackle them.

“Isn’t there a compelling case for China to be listed on that register?

“And if not now, then when?”

Mr Dowden replied: “There is a strong case for it, (Ms Braverman) will be aware of the process we go through in determining that, it has to be agreed through a collective government agreement.”

Conservative former leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith welcomed the sanctions, but claimed the deputy prime minister’s statement was “like an elephant giving birth to a mouse”.

DUP MP Jim Shannon, meanwhile, claimed the website for the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, which he chairs, had also been hacked.

The Strangford MP said: “The text which questioned human rights violations by China… it was removed.

“I reported that to Mr Speaker and made him aware of what took place.

“It is clear that nothing whatsoever is sacred to them, and the work of elected members of this House is not treated with respect.”

RIDICULED: Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden yesterday claimed ‘swift’ action over a three-year-old cyber attack.