Conclusions and recommendations
Recommendations are in italics.
Our work in 2013-14
1. We commend to the Government
the evidence we have received, both on its own merits and to underline
the value of hearing from outside experts. (Paragraph 5)
2. It is most unusual, if not unprecedented,
for a select committee to be given access to a Cabinet Committee's
agendas, and we welcome the access we have been given to the NSC's
agendas as a signal that the Prime Minister is committed to ensuring
that the NSC is operating to best effect. (Paragraph 10)
3. The Prime Minister normally appears
only before the Commons Liaison Committee and his agreement to
appear before our Committee demonstrates the personal interest
he takes in national security matters.We found our evidence session
with the Prime Minister helpful and informative: it gave us a
clearer understanding of the Prime Minister's personal vision
and of the rationale for some of the Government's decisions.(Paragraph
11)
4. We look to the Government
for assurance in the response to this report that the findings
of the Global Strategic Trends work are being well communicated
outside the Ministry of Defence and will be drawn on in the development
of the next NSS. (Paragraph 14)
5. We commend the improvements made
to the Annual Report on the NSS and SDSR in 2013 but suggest
there is still more that could be done to make the Annual Report
into a genuinely useful document for Parliament and the public.
(Paragraph 16)
The operation of the National Security
Council
6. We accept that the Prime Minister
has found the NSC a useful forum for getting Ministers and Departments
to work together, and believes that it has improved collective
decision-making. It is, of course, for the Prime Minister to arrange
the machinery of government in the way that works best for him.
However, we continue to believe that the NSC could be more effective
in helping the Government achieve its strategic objectives. (Paragraph
19)
7. We are concerned by the decline
in the number of NSC meetings since 2011 and by the extent of
the dominance of foreign affairs topics on the 2013 agendas. We
urge the Prime Minister to increase the number or length of NSC
meetings to allow the NSC time for thorough discussion of domestic
resilience issues and horizon-scanning, as well as immediate foreign
affairs matters. (Paragraph 22)
8. We welcome the Prime Minister's
assurance that outside experts had been brought in by the NSC,
and we would encourage this to happen more regularly in future.We
recommend that in future this Committee should be provided, together
with the NSC agendas, with details of outside experts attending
the NSC. (Paragraph 24)
Lessons from recent events
9. The crisis in Ukraine is the
type of event we had in mind when calling on the NSC to give time
to horizon-scanning and longer-term, strategic issues. (Paragraph
26)
10. The indications are that there
was a lack of joined-up working between Government Departments
both in planning for flood prevention and in the response once
problems arose. The NSC should examine the risks to the UK's
resilience from the likely longer-term impacts of climate change,
and consider whether the Government should be allocating more
resources to this area. (Paragraph 28)
11. We recommend that, as part
of its planning for the next NSS, the National Security Secretariat
should develop a methodology which enables the impact and likelihood
of risks to be considered alongside the amount of government effort
and resources that are being deployed to mitigate it. (Paragraph
29)
The US "pivot to Asia"
12. In response to this report
the Government should set out how significant it thinks the US
pivot to be and what this means for the UK's longer-term strategy
and capability requirement. (Paragraph 31)
The UK's relationship with the EU
13. The 2015 National Security Strategy
will need to take account of the continuing uncertainty about
the UK's role in Europe. (Paragraph 32)
14. The UK's future relationship
with the EU is vital to the UK's national security. It worries
us that the NSC does not consider EU matters as this risks crucial
connections being missed. (Paragraph 33)
Contingency planning
15. We reject the Prime Minister's
assertion that we should "plan on the basis of what we want
to achieve". The Government plans for many things it does
not want to happen: pandemics, flooding, and terrorism, for example.
An attitude of "no Plan B" is dangerous when national
security is at stake. The last NSS should have included the
impacts of possible Scottish Independence and the next one should
include, either in the published version or in private, the impact
were the UK's relationship with the EU to change. (Paragraph
35)
Energy security, resilience and national
critical infrastructure
16. It is crucially important
that energy security and domestic resilience are fully addressed
in the next NSS. (Paragraph 37)
17. We welcome the fact that
the NSC will look at foreign ownership of critical national infrastructure
and urge the Government to err on the side of caution. (Paragraph
38)
The role of the National Security
Strategy
18. There is a balance to be struck
between implementing the old strategy and keeping up to date with
a fast changing world. We think that the Government is too worried
about being distracted and needs to try and balance both. By now
the strategy is nearly four years old and has in some areas been
made less relevant by events, or events have revealed gaps (such
as on flooding). It is therefore necessary to balance implementing
and updating the strategy, especially as the strategy gets older.
(Paragraph 40)
19. A clear vision of the UK's goals
and role in the world is essential for a good NSS. The Prime Minister
expressed a clear vision for the UK and its place in the world
in his oral evidence, but it is not one we recognised from the
2010 NSS. It is important that the vision of the Government of
the day is more clearly reflected in the next NSS. (Paragraph
42)
20. We stand by our recommendation
from our first report that the UK needs an overarching strategy,
clearly expressed, that the public can engage with. As we said
in 2012, the next NSS should be "a very different document".
(Paragraph 43)
A realistic NSS
21. We repeat that expecting there
to be no shrinkage in the UK's influence is wholly unrealistic.
Any national security strategy based on this is wishful thinking
rather than credible strategy. While the Government should seek
to maximise its influence, no amount of spending money carefully
can change the overall picture; in the long term, the UK and its
allies are in relative decline on the global stage. (Paragraph
47)
Planning for the next NSS
22. We urge the Prime Minister to
reconsider his approach to the next NSS and to give a clear steer
to his officials that they are expected to produce a radically
different NSS in 2015, tackling the big (and politically difficult)
questions and which will guide decisions going forward. The current
'bottom-up' process will not deliver a document with a clear vision,
and suggestions from departments are likely to result in important
issues falling in the gaps between departmental responsibilities.
(Paragraph 51)
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