The UK must be “clear-eyed and hard-edged” about the threats it faces from across the world, a senior minister warned as he set out the Government’s plans to protect the nation.
Pat McFadden, a senior Cabinet Office minister, spoke of the challenge the UK faces from “major powers like China”, as well as the threat of looming instability across the globe, as he set out the Government’s national security strategy.
The strategy draws on work being carried out across the Government, including recent plans to revamp the defence sector and boost the economy by backing growth industries.
Mr McFadden told MPs the strategy would seek to protect the UK at home and abroad, and also invest more in artificial intelligence (AI) and defence.
“When the Prime Minister spoke to the House in February, he promised to produce a national security strategy that would match the scale of the task ahead, and the strategy we publish today does that with a plan that is both clear-eyed and hard-edged about the challenges we face,” he told MPs.
Mr McFadden, whose ministerial title is the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said the strategy would aim to deliver “three crucial things”.
The first of these is to “protect security at home”, by bolstering the borders and making the UK “more resilient to future threats”.
Ministers are stepping up calls for the whole of society to become more resilient and plan to carry out a cross-government exercise of how to deal with crises – such as a future pandemic – later this year.
The UK must also work to “promote strength abroad” with allies in order to defend their “collective security”, Mr McFadden said.
He added: “It also means a clear-eyed view of how we engage with major powers like China, where we must protect our national security and promote our economic interests.”
The strategy warned that “instances of China’s espionage, interference in our democracy and the undermining of our economic security have increased in recent years”.
The Government has promised “greater robustness and consistency” in the way it deals with China, according to the document.
The third step Mr McFadden set out was for the UK to increase its “sovereign and asymmetric capabilities”, including by rebuilding its defence industries and building “advantages in new frontier technologies” like AI.
“All of this will make us a stronger and more resilient country,” the senior minister added.
The document was released as the Prime Minister arrived in the Netherlands for a Nato leaders’ summit.
At the gathering, allies are being asked to raise defence funding to 5% of national economic output, a commitment made up of 3.5% core military spending, and a further 1.5% to be spent on broader security spending.
Shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel said the Government had not been clear enough about how it would reach the core defence spending goal, claiming ministers had only offered “smoke and mirrors”.
She added: “So, when will he actually deliver a plan to get to 2%, and why won’t he heed our calls to hit 3% by the end of this Parliament, which would be vital, and a vital stepping stone on the way to that higher defence spending that he is seeking.”
