20

The Government should seek to establish a dedicated, standing forum for international co-operation on diversifying...

Recommendation
The Government should seek to establish a dedicated, standing forum for international co-operation on diversifying the telecommunications market, encompassing as many like-minded countries as possible and covering aspects including: research and development; adoption and deployment; standards; and overall strategy. This should not be based on existing intelligence-sharing coalitions. The Government should set out in its response to this Report, how it intends to achieve this, a timetable for establishing such a forum and what progress it has made to date. (Paragraph 80) A critical technologies strategy
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government Accepted
The Government agrees that there is a need for international fora to coordinate and drive international collaboration on diversifying the telecommunications equipment market. The Diversification Strategy makes clear the Government’s intention to build a global coalition consisting of a critical mass of the global telecoms market to ensure there is sufficient scale and partnership to effectively tackle this issue. The Government is committed to leading the international conversation on this issue, and has identified telecoms diversification as one of its priorities for the UK’s presidency of the G7, using this multilateral forum to establish international consensus and agree to future co-operation on diversifying the telecommunications market. The Government is also engaging proactively with a wide range of international partners on a bilateral basis to understand their position on diversification and identify opportunities for joint collaboration. We will continue to proactively expand this engagement, and work with international partners on tangible opportunities for cooperation as implementation of the Government’s strategy develops to build international consensus for the need to address the security and resilience risks posed by a lack of effective competition in the global telecoms supply market. A critical technologies strategy
Addressee Bodies
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Timeline
Recommendation age 5.3 yrs
Report published 04 Feb 2021