Appendix: Government Response
1. 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)
Findings of the Ministry of Defence's studies of
Global Strategic Trends have now been published and, together
with other evidence, will help to provide broad contextual analysis
to inform work for the next National Security Strategy and Strategic
Defence and Security Review.
2. 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)
The NSC generally meets once a week when Parliament
is sitting. As the Prime Minister set out in January, the NSC
discussed a broad range of national security topics in 2013. The
NSC addresses homeland security implications within each foreign
policy discussion, with the appropriate Ministers and officials
present. The Government is confident that it has the balance about
right, especially given the fast-moving pace of world events,
but we will continue to keep the balance of topics on the NSC
agenda under review. For example, there were an exceptional number
of meetings in 2011 specifically during the Libya crisis, when
the NSC (Libya) met 62 times.
Additionally, the NSC Officials group of Permanent
Secretaries, which supports the NSC, has met weekly including
in Parliamentary recess, to ensure that existing and longer-term
issues are addressed, and advice provided to the NSC. Furthermore,
collective Ministerial agreement can be sought outside the weekly
meeting through the NSC write round process.
3. 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 the 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)
Government officials will continue to brief the Committee
on the NSC's engagement with outside experts.
4. 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)
Severe flooding was identified as a priority in the
National Security Strategy. The Department for Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs (Defra) leads the Government's strategy for
flood prevention and, through its agencies, manages a major programme
of work aimed at reducing the risk of flooding. Defra is also
the lead Government department for responding to flooding. Earlier
this year the UK experienced historically unprecedented extreme
weather, bringing flooding to the coast and causing rivers to
burst their banks. In total, some 1.4 million properties were
protected by pre-existing flood defences.
The Government is spending more than £3.2 billion
over the course of this parliament on flood and erosion risk management
(between 2010/11 to 2014/15) compared to £2.7 billion in
the previous 5 years, and making an unprecedented 6-year commitment
to record levels of £2.3 billion capital investment in improving
defences right up to 2021.
In light of the severity of the weather, the Government's
emergency committee, COBR, brought together those departments
with a responsibility for managing the response to the floods,
meeting more than 30 times in 10 weeks to ensure that the risks
were understood; central Government resources were coordinated;
and that local respondents had the resources they needed.
The Prime Minister has created a dedicated committee,
the Ministerial Committee on Flooding, to ensure that the lessons
were identified and implemented.
The Government has also discussed flooding in the
context of the National Risk Register and the National Risk Assessment.
The 2010 National Security Strategy (NSS) highlighted the broad
range of risks which climate change could exacerbate. In 2012,
the Government published the UK's first Climate Change Risk Assessment,
which assessed the risks from longer-term climate change. The
evidence base for the 2015 NSS will include consideration of climate.
5. 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 Government recognises the importance of resource
choices in risk management and notes the Committee's recommendation
for the next National Security Strategy.
6. 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 Asia-Pacific region remains an area of growing
interest for both the UK and the US, and we enjoy close cooperation
and dialogue on the policy challenges and opportunities.
The UK welcomes the US strategic rebalance to the
region, which is in line with the UK's diplomatic network and
broader Government resource shift towards the Emerging Powers.
The UK has refocused diplomatic resources towards the Asia-Pacific
region to strengthen our presence and build durable and wide-ranging
bilateral relationships with the Emerging Powers in the Asia region.
This includes increasing our staff resource in the region through
the Network Shift; increasing the Defence Attaché Network
and expanding defence sections in key Posts. By 2015, we will
have deployed over 100 extra staff across the Asian network, including
60 working in and on China alone; and will have resident Defence
Attachés in Australia, Brunei, China, Indonesia, Japan,
Malaysia, New Zealand, ROK and Singapore.
We are well placed to capitalise on renewed US engagement
to further our own major security and economic interests in Asia.
We are working increasingly closely with the US in policy areas
relevant to Asia where we have common aims. Issues on which we
co-operate include the South China Sea, North Korea and Burma.
Further, the US and the UK cooperate closely to shape Chinese
approaches to transparency, good governance, corruption, intellectual
property and open markets. We have regular UK-US discussions at
working and Ministerial level and our missions in the region work
closely together, coordinating on policy and sharing best practice.
At the strategic level, the UK and US will continue
to work together to advance our shared values and interests across
the globe. We will work together to support and enhance regional
stability and the international rules-based system, bolster our
partnerships in the region, and promote the resolution of disputes
— whether they be economic, territorial or otherwise —
peacefully and in accordance with international law. In this area
there is no doubt that the UK and US are and remain each other's
partner of choice.
However, we do not see the US' rebalancing as representing
disengagement from Europe, but as a move that is in direct support
of our interests. The US commitment remains strong. President
Obama has recently announced a $1 billion European Reassurance
Initiative (ERI) to ensure a continued US military presence in
Eastern Europe through 2015, and contribute to NATO reassurance
and deterrence in response to Russia's actions in Ukraine. In
making the request, President Obama said that "our commitment
to … the security of our allies in central and eastern Europe
is a cornerstone of our own security, and it is sacrosanct".
The Government notes the Committee's recommendation,
and will consider fully the implications of US policy towards
Asia in the course of the 2015 SDSR. But in the interim the UK
is enhancing real and important partnerships in the region, including
inward summit visits of Chinese Premier and the Japanese Prime
Minister, the State Visit of President Park, and the Prime Minister's
successful visit to China in December 2013. The UK continues to
demonstrate to partners in the region through our defence engagement
our advanced military capabilities, including the recent tour
of HMS Daring, and UK assets used in the disaster response to
Typhoon Haiyan and the search for missing MH370 plane.
7. 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 there is national security
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)
The Government's position on Scottish independence
is clear: Scotland is better off as part of the UK and the UK
is better off with Scotland in it. We are confident that people
in Scotland will vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in
the forthcoming referendum, and as such we are not planning for
Scotland's separation from the UK. Both the UK Government and
the Scottish Government have said that there can be no 'pre-negotiations'
on what the terms of independence might be before the referendum
takes place. The UK Government has been very clear about the reasons
for this. It is one of Scotland's two Governments. It acts in
the interests of all the people of the UK, delivering security
and prosperity for all, including those who live in Scotland.
As both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have
made clear, the UK Government believes that membership of the
European Union is in the national interest and is committed to
playing an active and influential role including on EU reform.
8. It is crucially important that energy
security and domestic resilience are fully addressed in the next
NSS. (Paragraph 37)
Energy security and domestic resilience have played
an important part in the 2010 National Security Strategy. The
Government notes the Committee's recommendation for the next National
Security Strategy.
9. 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 Government notes the Committee's recommendation
on Critical National Infrastructure. The process for dealing with
such issues falls under the auspices of the NSC. Since the creation
of the NSC in 2010, the Government has put in place an approach
which enables it to assess the risks associated with foreign investment
and develop strategies to manage them. The NSC brings together
the economic and security arms of the Government and is the forum
that ultimately balances the risks and opportunities of inward
investment decisions and exercises the appropriate level of caution.
The NSC is supported by a number of sub-committees which work
with the relevant departments to identify and assess any risks
in pipeline investment opportunities and bring these to the attention
of Ministers. The Government recognises this is a fast changing
environment and will continue to review these processes regularly.
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