§ Lord Kennetasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Secretary of State for Defence, and the relevant security services have given their approval to the decision by the Department of Trade and Industry to give Messrs. AT&T (The American Telephone and Telegraph Company) a full public telecommunications operator's licence; and if so whether the terms of the licence enable Her Majesty's Government fully to monitor those aspects of public telecommunications that affect the commercial and other independence of the United Kingdom; and
What the relationship will be between Messrs. AT&T operating in Britain and the intelligence services of the United States; and
What control they intend to retain over Messrs AT&T, and whether AT&T will operate under United States law or British law, and in each case in what respect; and
What the relationship will be between Messrs. AT&T operating in the United Kingdom and Messrs. AT&T operating elsewhere.
Earl FerrersThe Government's decision to grant a public telecommunication operator licence to AT&T followed the usual process of consultation within government, as well as an extended period of public consultation. The licence has been issued to AT&T Communications (UK) Ltd, a UK-registered company which is indirectly a wholly-owned subsidiary of AT&T International Inc.
As with many telecommunications companies (including BT and Cable and Wireless), AT&T has operations in many parts of the world. In such cases, operators must comply with local regulatory requirements. The Government would not expect to be informed about all such requirements.
Within the United Kingdom, public telecommunications operator licences are governed by relevant United Kingdom and EC law, principally the Telecommunications Act 1984.
All public telecommunications operator licences contain requirements and conditions to allow the Government and OFTEL, the statutory regulator, to monitor both the activities of individual licensees and the development of competition in the industry as a whole. As is usual, the Government do not propose to comment on issues relating to national security.