Britain must appoint minister for cyber security because it is lagging behind Russia, warn MPs

Britain must appoint a minister for cyber security because it is lagging behind Russia and not doing enough to protect critical national infrastructure, MPs have warned.

The Joint Committee on National Security Strategy found ministers are failing to act with "a meaningful sense of purpose or urgency" in the face of the growing cyber threat to the UK.

It said while states such as Russia were expanding their capability to mount disruptive cyber attacks, the level of ministerial oversight was "wholly inadequate".

It urged Theresa May to appoint a single cyber security minister in the Cabinet Office to take charge of the efforts to build national resilience.

It noted the Government had come to the conclusion that a major cyber attack on the UK’s critical national infrastructure (CNI) represented a "top tier" threat to national security, with potentially "devastating" consequences.

But while ministers had explicitly acknowledged the need to improve resilience, it said their efforts had failed to match the level of risk.

"While we applaud the aspiration, it appears the Government is not delivering on it with a meaningful sense of purpose or urgency," it said.

"Identifiable political leadership is lacking. There is little evidence to suggest a 'controlling mind' at the centre of government, driving change consistently across the many departments and CNI sectors involved.

"We are concerned that the current complex arrangements for ministerial responsibility mean that day-to-day oversight of cross-government efforts is, in reality, led by officials, with ministers only occasionally 'checking in'.

"This is wholly inadequate to the scale of the task facing the Government, and inappropriate in view of the Government's own assessment that major cyber attacks are a top-tier national security threat."

The committee welcomed the establishment of the National Cyber Security Centre as the national technical authority but expressed concerns that expectations of what it could achieve were "outstripping the resources put at its disposal".

A Government spokeswoman said: "Ensuring our critical national infrastructure is secure and resilient against cyber attacks is a priority for the Government, which is why we are investing £1.9billion to improve our cyber capabilities.

"Ministers have clear responsibilities that are rightly shared because every part of government must respond to the challenges we face.”