As the country prepares to move forward to the next, 5th generation of mobile networks, Huawei is a name on everyone’s lips.

The global leader in communications, it is China’s premier technology giant.

Owned by its staff, members of China’s Communist Party have significant control of its equity. And being cheaper, and 18 months ahead of its major rivals, Eriksson and Nokia, it is potentially the lead provider of kit for our new, 5G network.

We have always been suspicious of China. Colleagues visiting China are given gifts of computer peripherals – a memory stick, perhaps.

The advice is to destroy them at the first opportunity, so laden with spy-ware are they as to open up devices to Chinese scrutiny with no defence.

MPs are advised, and ministers ordered, to leave personal ‘phones, IPads and laptops at home when visiting China, taking instead a pay-as-you-go “burner” mobile, disposable on return.

After one trip to China, I idly asked my team if I could keep hold of the throwaway ‘phone for my kids. “Only if you are entirely happy,” came the reply, “that the People’s Liberation Army know the exact whereabouts of your family at all times.” The phone was destroyed.

Based on security alone, should we allow our critical national communications infrastructure to be built by British contractors and providers, using Chinese hardware? (The same question might apply to nuclear power stations, by the way.) Although it will be cheaper and more advanced, are we introducing unmeasurable risk by using a Chinese company to make the basic architecture of the system?

There is a heated debate, and quite understandably. But as is the case with much of this type of thing, the debaters are, in the main, not privy to the details of the argument. Frankly, we will never be as our intelligence services, by necessity, keep their information and sources close to their chests.

Of course, Huawei have supplied kit for 3G and 4G so it is not as if we are inexperienced at this. And all the kit that goes into such a project is checked thoroughly by our security people.

But we all need to be confident that our information is safe, and our country safe from losing a strategic advantage that we may not even fully understand the nature of. This is a decision we must get right. 5G may be around for a few years.