Letter on the Emergency Services Network and the Huawei ban

Concerns around the Government’s Huawei ban for 5G and how it could impact the Emergency Services Network programme for blue light emergency services, which ensures they can talk to each other during any incident, have been raised by the Fire, Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee.



The Chair of the Fire, Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee has written to the London Fire Brigade to ask what reassurance they have had from Government on the potential impact and implications on the Emergency Services Network without Huawei.



The Emergency Services Network programme is set to change radically the way emergency services communicate with each other across the country by replacing the current outdated Airwave radio system based on existing 4G mobile data.



The programme, overseen by the Home Office, already has a predicted overspend of £3.1 billion and a delay to completion from 2017 to 2022.



The Emergency Services Network will retain the use of Huawei technology, which will need replacing soon, so there is a risk that the programme is based on technology with a short lifespan and security concerns.