Britain must build its own tech giant to rival Huawei, Matt Hancock says

BRITAIN must build its own tech giant to rival Huawei, PM hopeful Matt Hancock will say today.

In a speech setting out what his foreign policy would look like in No10 the leadership candidate will enter the highly-contentious debate surrounding the Chinese tech company’s involvement in building Britain’s new 5G network.

America has gone a lot further than the UK by banning Huawei from any federal contracts, while the firm was also banned from Google’s Android platform last year.

But Mr Hancock, the current Health Secretary, says Britain cannot impose its own ban on Huawei until the country has a “viable replacement”.

He will say the concerns raised about China using Huawei as a backdoor into spying on the nation ignore the real problem of the lack of alternative tech firms.

And the top Tory will say the best way of overcoming the concerns is to beat Huawei with “a British champion of our own,” adding: “A champion that can become a global leader.”

Mr Hancock will say: “Questions are being raised about Chinese equipment on the next generation of technology.

“Simplistic answers abound that underplay - or ignore - the full extent Huawei are already embedded within current technology.

“But we know that Huawei technology is not the best, and we would like more assurance over our systems.

“But, we can’t just ban without a replacement. And we shouldn’t shirk from having that replacement - preferably British.

“The question of whether we should have Chinese equipment on our 5G networks is asking the question the wrong way round. The question should be: why don’t we have a home grown solution?

“To put it another way, we should beat Huawei with a British champion of our own. A champion that can become a global leader.”

Yesterday Donald Trump downplayed suggestions that the US would cut down on intelligence sharing if Britain gave Huawei a role in building 5G.

He said he expected the “incredible intelligence relationship” with the UK would continue regardless.

Meanwhile, Mr Hancock, 40, said he piled on 3 stone in as many months when he was 26 and preparing for a six-week trek to the North Pole. He lost it all again during the trip.

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