Huawei has spent at least £140,000 on hospitality in Westminster for MPs and donations to political parties and parliamentary groups

Huawei’s roots in Britain run so deep that its equipment is ubiquitous in our networks while its contacts go to the heart of the establishment.

Despite longstanding concerns about its links to the security services in Beijing, the Chinese company has grown rapidly in Britain, where it is the third most popular smartphone maker after Samsung and Apple. About 2.2 million Britons own Huawei phones, up from less than a million a year ago.

The company, based in Shenzhen, provides hardware and software for much of BT’s phone and broadband network as well as mobile operators, after signing its first big infrastructure deal here in 2003.

Huawei’s expansion was encouraged by politicians such as George Osborne, the former chancellor, who welcomed its billions of pounds