Microsoft Outage Puts Westminster Under Pressure Over Reliance on One Supplier as Ministers Promise Resilience

The UK government says it is working closely with Microsoft to assess the effect of the global outage on public services, and a minister has said systems need to be more resilient. Parliament, police forces and the NHS have all lost email or online services since Thursday. As this is published, around 11:55 UTC on Friday 13 November, Microsoft has reported early signs of stabilisation but no full recovery.

A government spokesperson said it was aware of the ongoing global technical issues affecting Microsoft services and was working closely with the company to assess any impact on government services, with "robust contingency plans in place", LADbible reported. The statement is attributed to a government spokesperson, not to a named department.

What have ministers said about the Microsoft outage?

Luke Pollard, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, said government engineers were working with Microsoft to fix the problems and that more details were expected during the day, the Guardian reported in a piece republished by AOL. He said the outage showed the need for greater resilience. The BBC, via Yahoo, reported that he told BBC Breakfast the government was assessing the impact on its own systems. The trade site Ads Advance quoted him as saying the responsibility to fix the problem lay with Microsoft, a remark the other reports reviewed here do not carry. The Welsh government said it was putting its own contingency plans in place, the Guardian added.

How has Parliament been affected?

MPs reported that they could not reach Microsoft products through their parliamentary accounts. A parliamentary spokesperson said the global issue was affecting users of the parliamentary network and that alternative communication arrangements were in place so business could continue, according to the BBC and the Guardian. Reports reviewed for this piece contain no statement to the Commons, no mention of COBR being convened, and no response from the Cabinet Office, and none says any minister called the outage an attack. Microsoft's own executive Charles Lamanna said there was no indication of malicious or cyber activity, HuffPost UK reported.

What has the National Cyber Security Centre said?

No statement from the NCSC on this outage appeared in the coverage reviewed. The agency did publish its annual review on 3 November, in which chief executive Richard Horne said the UK's cyber resilience is not yet where it should be and urged organisations to build resilience at the pace required. That foreword does not discuss dependence on suppliers, and it predates the outage, so it is context, not a reaction.

Is the UK too dependent on one supplier?

That argument has come from outside government so far. Dr Junade Ali, a fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, said the incident highlights the risk of concentrating key services with a small number of suppliers, in comments gathered by the Science Media Centre. Professor James Ferryman of the University of Reading said the UK can see how much daily life runs through one company's email system, and Professor Alan Woodward of the University of Surrey said many organisations depend on Microsoft's servers working properly.

The coverage reviewed carries no opposition party statements on the outage. What to watch is whether the government publishes the assessment Pollard described, and whether ministers are asked in the Commons next week about backup arrangements.