Source · Select Committees · National Security Strategy (Joint Committee)
Recommendation 3
3
Accepted
We also found sceptical views in some parts of the cable industry about the risks...
Conclusion
We also found sceptical views in some parts of the cable industry about the risks of co-ordinated attacks. We agree that resilience across the sector is generally robust, major disruption is unlikely, and hype is unhelpful. But we caution against adopting ‘business as usual’ industry views to determine national security risk: individual operators have few financial incentives to prepare for a crisis that may never come. The Government, by contrast, has a duty to prepare competently for low-likelihood, high-risk scenarios. The lessons of 9/11, the financial crash, Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine are reminders that such events do happen. (Conclusion, Paragraph 38) 62
Government response summary AI-generated
The government agrees with the underlying sentiment, committing to ensuring subsea cable infrastructure is geographically diverse and working with industry and Crown Estates to secure space for future routes to support long-term resilience.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government · verbatim extract
Accepted
The Government agrees with the Committee on the importance of ensuring that public and private risk scenarios reflect the evolving threat landscape, including the potential for coordinated sabotage targeting subsea cables, terrestrial infrastructure, and onward connections to Europe. We are currently reviewing and updating our assessments of risks to telecoms and internet infrastructure, as part of the Government’s national risk assessment process. This will include consideration of how best to update the reasonable worst-case scenarios (RWCS) within our national risk assessments to reflect the possibility of coordinated sabotage on subsea and terrestrial internet infrastructure, including onward connections to Europe.
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