A ‘state actor’ is likely to be responsible for a security breach that allowed hackers access to confidential Ministry of Defence payroll data, according to the Work and Pensions Secretary.
Mel Stride told GB News: “The Defence Secretary will be making a full statement to Parliament later today and no doubt addressing some of those issues. But let me just say, now that this is a third bath party data set that appears to have been compromised.
“That has been shut down immediately by the Ministry of Defence in terms of external access to it and of course they're providing support and advice to those who may have been impacted.
“But we really need I think to wait until we have Grant Shapps, his statement later today, to find out more.”
In a discussion with Stephen Dixon and Isabel Webster, he added: “It does appear I think at this stage to be some kind of state actor but let's wait to find out what we hear.
“As to China, we've made it very clear in our defence review, in the refresh of that review, that China remains, I think we've defined them as an epoch-making challenge to the UK in terms of economic security.
“That's why obviously we've taken action in the past in terms of getting Huawei as hardware out of parts of our infrastructure here in the UK and also interventions in terms of energy security, as well.
“So we do take this very seriously but at the end of the day also they are a very important economic partner and we have global challenges like climate change that we need to engage with China in order to address.”
Asked about the local election results, he added: “My observations would be that this was a difficult time for the Conservative Party. There's no doubt about that at all. There's no point in ducking that.
“But at the same time, they were very low turnout elections. The electorate, as we know, is very volatile.
“And I think there are elements of evidence that whilst people may be disgruntled with us at the moment when you have to do some work there and perhaps then come on to that, that people are not naturally necessarily beating a path with great enthusiasm to Labour's door.”
He added: “Things are changing….we are seeing progress. There is more time between now and the next General Election.
“I think was Harold Wilson, who said a week is a long time in politics. We have several months now before the next General Election.”
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