Oral evidence: Undersea cables: follow-up, HC 148
Oral evidence, 18 May 2026.
Liam Byrne
Are we at peace now or are we not?
John Wrottesley
That is not for me to answer.
Liam Byrne
Well, I think Ministers are pretty clear that we are not at peace, so we as a committee have to try to understand where the burden falls for investing in repair ships and where the taxpayer has to pick up the bill. I am interested in where you think the balance lies.
Elisabeth Braw
I can come in. The first thing to remember is that there is a difference in costs when a data cable breaks compared to a power cable. A power cable is much more expensive to repair. All cable owners do their best to keep their cables in good order because cables are expensive to buy and install in the first place, and if one breaks then they try to fix it. The biggest problem is with power cables—for example, the operators of Estlink 2 lost around €50 million when it was hit by that ship on Christmas Day 2024. They can pick up that cost at once, but what if it happens several times? What sort of cable operator would be willing to put a cable on the seabed under such circumstances? I do not know how that could possibly make sense from a business perspective. Data cables are quicker and much easier to repair but that is still an added cost for them. Then, as John says, we come to a situation where repair crews have to go out in, let us say, adversarial conditions. That is exactly what we have seen in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz: installation crews—not repair crews this time, but installation crews—have not been able to go in because it is too dangerous. What if repair crews could not go in because the situation was too hostile? That brings us to the question of insurance that was asked earlier.
Liam Byrne
Before we get on to hostile situations, let me give you the case study of a place that is not that hostile, but which is a long way away, called Orkney. The cable repairs there took a month, which feels like a long period of time. The question we are interested in is the public policy goal of how to make sure that, when cables are damaged or broken by hostile action, someone repairs them quickly. I am interested in whether you think we need more vessels or more reservists. Is there a lack of clarity about who exactly should be paying for all this?
John Wrottesley
As it stands, the cable repair ecosystem is market-driven, so industry repairs cables when they are damaged. I would say that a month for repair is pretty good in dynamic marine conditions—operating at sea, getting cables, picking up spares, sailing a ship up and getting it repaired. There is a balance here. If you have a small number of cable faults but a large number of cable ships, and you have a lot of cable ships sitting around not doing very much, you will have a loss of skills—people forget how to undertake these activities, and so on—and the commercial model does not necessarily stack up in the same way. When it comes to looking at anything beyond that, having additional capacity beyond what is required commercially is a different conversation, and that is a cost that would probably need to be looked at nationally because there would not necessarily be a need for the typical base case for cable repair. Again, that does not necessarily need to be a vessel, although it could be, but all these questions need to be explored in the round. It could be being part of the maintenance agreements and structures or something else in order to make sure that, if there is a conflict-type situation, there is the ability to access cables and sail and operate a ship to be able to do the repair in those more uncertain circumstances. It does not just have to be war or a large conflict; it can also be—the Red Sea is not necessarily a good example—somewhere where there is heightened tension that might cause uncertainty and make operators less willing to sail vessels in those circumstances.
The Chair
I was struck by the fact that it seems to take 10 years to train a jointer. What is so specialist about that? Think about how long it takes to train a brain surgeon. Ten years seems an incredible length of time, and you are talking about the lack of capacity in the skills that we have. That is terrifying, is it not?
John Wrottesley
I am sure that if there was a concerted effort then those training timescales could be accelerated, but typically that is how long it takes to train a competent jointer who needs sea time experience, the ability to do the technical work of jointing and everything that goes along with it.
The Chair
I do not mean to diminish the task, but they are putting two cables together like an electrician would do for British Telecom or whatever. Is that what actually happens—they bring the cables up on to the ship and then sew them back together somehow?
John Wrottesley
Yes, splicing is done on board the vessel, but it is highly specialised in the marine environment. You have the dynamics of cable handling. You have huge lengths of cable in the sea and cables under tension brought on to the back deck of the ship. There is a lot of specialist expertise that goes along with that. Still, there certainly needs to be consideration about how we can improve capacity and bring new people in who are willing to go offshore and work in this industry.
The Chair
Is it well paid?
John Wrottesley
I understand so.
Elisabeth Braw
It is just that not enough people know about this profession. It is out of sight.
The Chair
We are doing our best. That is why I am asking how well it is paid, maybe to get a few more people interested in doing it, because we clearly need the capacity.
Elisabeth Braw
But no one realises that the profession exists until a cable in their neighbourhood is broken. At that point, they can think of nothing but splicers, or rather jointers who can splice.
John Wrottesley
There is widespread recognition that it is harder to persuade people to work offshore. I think the Navy and other maritime industries have this challenge as well.
The Chair
It worked in the oil industry, did it not? I call Lord Hutton.
Lord Hutton of Furness
Can we turn our attention to our future undersea infrastructure? Are you both concerned that future cable routes might have the effect of creating clusters of high-value targets, possibly creating greater vulnerabilities? Is industry doing anything to reduce this possible risk?
John Wrottesley
Through the design, planning and routeing of systems, industry is always obsessed with resilience. It looks at burial protection and geographic diversity to make sure that there is physical separation between cables. You do not want to end up in a situation where you have choke points and clustering. Unfortunately, we have a limited amount of seabed, and a lot of other development is taking place as well, so there may be some areas that become increasingly congested around the UK. There are areas that are relatively congested already. There is a lot of work in those areas. I think the report mentioned the marine delivery route map that the Crown Estate is looking at, and it is looking at protecting strategic space for future telecoms and subsea telecoms cable routeing to make sure that they are not prevented from landing in the UK, and that might end up with a limited effect of clustering. Of course that is not the intention, but the opposite of that would be having blockades where no cables could come ashore at all. In future, those might need some level of additional scrutiny or the prohibition of particular activities in that area.
Lord Hutton of Furness
Do you think the security risk of such a policy is being given serious attention?
John Wrottesley
In what way?
Lord Hutton of Furness
You referred to the marine delivery route map and talked about an unintended consequence, but it is pretty obvious that this is a really serious risk. Then why are we doing it?
John Wrottesley
It is being very directly looked at. The alternative of doing nothing means that you will end up with large areas where there are no route options left for cables, whereas this is looking at making sure strategically that we have safeguarded the future by ensuring that there are areas left.
Lord Hutton of Furness
Are we managing that risk properly?
John Wrottesley
I think so at the moment, yes.
Lord Hutton of Furness
And what about industry? My question was about what industry will do to help reduce the risk of that.
John Wrottesley
Industry will always continue to aim for geographic diversity and well-protected and well-buried cables, for all of those reasons which are more about protecting their own assets.
Lord Hutton of Furness
So you naturally favour route diversification?
John Wrottesley
Yes.
Lord Hutton of Furness
Do you think Government is engaging with you properly on that?
John Wrottesley
Yes, I think so. That is well understood. DSIT has been involved in the development of the marine delivery route map. All those conversations are taking place to balance those various risks.
Lord Hutton of Furness
Thank you, John. What about heightened monitoring and protection for these sensitive sites, particularly where cables come onshore? Who will need to pay for that heightened security around those sites?
John Wrottesley
Again, it depends what the security is for and what is being asked for. Cable owners will pay for monitoring systems on their cables for cable protection purposes. That is to monitor their own assets. In terms of other security measures, maybe at landing stations and so on, I do not know. It would depend on what was being asked and for what purpose.
Elisabeth Braw
Can I add to that? You mentioned diversification in terms of geography, but one development worth paying attention to is the decrease in ownership diversity. Specifically, the American tech giants are now able through their enormous resources to co-own cables and increasingly own them on their own—not just any cables, but extremely powerful ones. It is worth thinking about what vulnerability that exposes the UK to and what it means for smaller cable owners.
Lord Hutton of Furness
But that is more of a commercial risk you are describing rather than a security risk.
Elisabeth Braw
Well, it is a commercial risk, but if you consider the current geopolitical environment, what would happen if decision-makers in the United States decided they wanted to harm the UK or another European country in a way that was less brutal—along the lines of tariffs or other commercial means? That seems to me an area where they could impose considerable consequences on the UK or whatever other country they wanted to target.
Lord Tunnicliffe
There seems to be frighteningly little redundancy in the system. To give us some feel for that debate, what roughly does a cable cost?
John Wrottesley
Pass. I am not sure of the exact cost.
Lord Tunnicliffe
I do not want the exact cost—the number of noughts will do.
Elisabeth Braw
For example, one cable co-owned by Google that was recently installed cost $600 million.
Lord Tunnicliffe
That was from where to where?
Elisabeth Braw
I want to say it was between Japan and the United States.
Lord Tunnicliffe
That sounds like peanuts for something so important.
Elisabeth Braw
Well, it is peanuts for a major company.
Lord Tunnicliffe
Or even a small Government.
Elisabeth Braw
So your point is that Governments should own cables.
The Chair
Finally, Ms Braw, you may have heard the Minister say that he was confident in the Navy’s ability to track, say, Russian vessels and their proximity to some of our infrastructure and therefore that, in the eventuality of damage to a cable, the intervention would be pretty immediate. Surely, when it comes to a trawler or a less obvious vessel damaging our infrastructure, it is going to take quite some time for a Navy vehicle to attend.
Elisabeth Braw
If it does not happen to be nearby. Thanks to things like Baltic Sentry, there is now more patrolling around cables. But I think the other question is about what happens once that naval or coastguard vessel reaches the site. What are they supposed to do? What are they being asked to do other than document that a vessel may be up to no good? This really gets to the bottom, as it were, of what we are trying to do to protect cables. We can monitor, conduct surveillance and have all these technological tools, but how do we respond when we see something happening? It is interesting that the only country that has been willing to disrupt a cable incident as it was happening is Taiwan. The reason for that, I think, is that it is not party to UNCLOS, for reasons to do with the fact that it is not recognised as a member of the United Nations. If you are not party to UNCLOS, you have a bit more liberty, which on this occasion works to Taiwan’s advantage. But for everybody else, what are the vessels supposed to do when they reach that site?
Sarah Champion
Elisabeth, I sense frustration when you are speaking. Do you think that countries, particularly the UK, are aware enough of the risks that undersea cables present, and are they doing enough to protect them?
Elisabeth Braw
I think they are aware, but it is just not clear what anybody can do about it. Now that the consensus that has existed since Victorian times—that undersea cables are supposed to be left alone because it is in everybody’s interest and they are not in any way offensive to anybody—is fading, what is anybody supposed to do about it without violating international rules? If you violate international rules to defend against somebody who is violating international rules, then it becomes a bizarre game. This is where the UK Government and other western Governments are caught. I would also propose to the committee that maybe one of the ideas you could put to the Government is that the UK, as the originator of the global undersea cable system, perhaps has a special role to play in assembling an international coalition of Governments who are willing to stand up for the protection of undersea cables. I submit that that is almost every Government; it is only a small minority of actors out there who are actively trying to cause harm to the cables.
The Chair
Thank you very much, both of you, for your time. Thanks for being flexible, as we started and finished a bit late. That concludes our second panel and our session today. Thank you again.