My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to respond to questions following the Foreign Secretary’s Statement on the integrated review refresh yesterday. As noble Lords will be aware, the IR refresh is the culmination of work across government over recent months. The Government have engaged with Parliament, the devolved Governments, external experts and wider stakeholders with an interest in our nation’s security and prosperity. At a moment of evolving global challenges, this refresh demonstrates that the UK is agile and ready to respond to the geopolitical issues that we face. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Purvis and Lord Collins, for having made broadly the same point.
In 2021, the IR established a strong foundation for the UK’s overarching national security and international strategy. It took the right judgments to drive investment in collective defence and security; to increase emphasis on domestic resilience; to advocate a more activist problem- solving global posture; and to prioritise strength in science and technology. However, the review also identified that the world is becoming more contested and volatile, and those trends have clearly intensified over the last two years, with far-reaching consequences for the security and prosperity of the British people. From Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine to China’s growing economic coercion, the reality is that the world has become a more dangerous place. This update, IR 2023, sets out how the UK will meet that reality head on.
IR 2023 confirms that the UK’s most pressing national security and foreign policy priority in the short to medium term is to address the threat posed by Russia to European security, although I very much note the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, about the wider implications of Russia’s activities. Our new Russian strategy began evolving the moment that Russian troops crossed the border into Ukraine, waging an illegal assault on a sovereign nation and raising the spectre of war in Europe. The UK has provided huge quantities of military support for Ukraine’s defence, co-ordinating diplomatic activity and working with allies to impose the toughest ever sanctions on Putin’s Government. As we update our Russia strategy, our objective is to continue to contain and challenge Russia’s ability and intent to disrupt the security of the UK, the Euro-Atlantic and the wider international order.
China too, under the Chinese Communist Party, presents an epoch-defining challenge for the UK. It is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and the second largest economy in the world, so it has an impact on almost every global issue of importance to the UK. Our approach must therefore be rooted in our national interest, co-ordinated with like-minded partners that are working with us to maintain an open and stable international order. We have already taken robust action to protect UK interests since the last review, such as new powers to protect our critical industries under the National Security and Investment Act, bolstering the security of our 5G network through the telecommunications Act and training more than 170 civil servants in Mandarin.
The refresh confirms that we will go further. We will double funding for a Government-wide China capabilities programme, including investing in Mandarin language
training—in addition to the numbers that I just mentioned —as well as diplomatic networks and intelligence analysis. We will roll out a new college for national security curriculum to boost our capability across government. Yesterday it was announced that as part of the IR refresh we will take action to bolster the nation’s defences as well, with an immediate uplift in funding and a new ambition to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP in the longer term.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked for a timescale. I cannot give him a precise timescale, but I can say that we are committed to investing £5 billion over the next two years, which will help to replenish our ammunition stocks, modernise our nuclear enterprise and fund the next phase of the AUKUS partnership. As we face the most significant conflict in Europe since the end of World War II in an increasingly volatile world, we must ensure that our Armed Forces are ready for anything. We will maintain our leading position in the NATO alliance, with the new ambition, as has already been noted, to invest 2.5% of GDP in defence.
IR 2023 also sets out how we will step up work to protect the sectors, supply chains and technologies of strategic importance to the UK and our allies, with the new National Protective Security Authority providing a source of expertise and an interface between the Government and business. We will publish a new strategy on supply chains and imports, and we will refresh our delivery of the UK critical minerals strategy.
Our new semiconductor strategy, which the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, asked about, will set out plans to grow the UK semiconductor sector and improve the resilience of our supply chains at home and overseas. As has been noted, semiconductors are critical to the UK’s economic and national security and fundamental to many technologies—everything from fighter jets to ventilators. We need to build on the UK’s strategic advantage to secure supply and our future as a technical leader in areas like artificial intelligence, quantum and cyber. The strategy will focus on our existing strengths in R&D, intellectual property and design and compound semiconductors to grow the domestic sector. It will also increase the resilience of supply chains against disruption.
The new economic deterrence initiative will build upon our diplomatic and economic toolkit to respond to hostile acts by current and future aggressors. With initial funding of up to £50 million over the next two years, the initiative will improve our sanctions implementation and enforcement. This will maximise the impact of our trade, transport and financial sanctions by cracking down on sanctions evasion.
After the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions we are looking at our wider neighbourhood, those regions where developments have direct consequences for this country, from migration flows to transnational security threats. Our approach in Africa, for instance, will continue to be defined by a greater appreciation of the perspectives of partners across the continent, focusing on mutually beneficial development on security and defence but also on clean infrastructure and, increasingly importantly, on climate adaptation. We will host the next UK-Africa Investment Summit in April 2024, bringing countries together to strengthen those economic and trade links.
In Latin America, we are working with partners on a wide range of issues but with a particular focus on implementation of the GBF agreed in Montreal in December—on biodiversity, nature and tackling climate change. Alongside that, we are continuing to up our work on tackling organised crime. We would be supportive of Brazil joining the UN Security Council as a permanent member, as well as India, Japan and Germany. Development remains at the heart of our foreign policy.
The UK is a leading global aid donor, notwithstanding the cuts we have debated many times. The noble Lord knows I wish to see a return to 0.7% as soon as possible. Notwithstanding that, we have a reputation for being effective and generous; we have spent more than £11 billion on international development assistance since 2021, including on tackling climate change and a whole range of other issues, not least girls’ education and global health. We remain committed to saving lives, to protecting the world’s poorest. We continue to prioritise development in our thinking. That was recently exemplified by the Minister for Development becoming a permanent member of the National Security Council.
The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, raised a number of other issues, which I am going to tackle now before I move on. One of them was in relation to the BBC World Service. We will provide £20 million of additional funding to the service over the next two years. I think I am answering his question in saying that that will protect all 42 World Service language services, as well as supporting English language broadcasting and the ongoing counter-disinformation programme.
As in the original IR, climate is at the heart of our thematic priorities. It is essential that the UK transitions away from fossil fuels here if we are to meet our net-zero targets. At COP 27, we set out our intention to make the UK a clean energy superpower. The UK has already cut emissions faster than any G20 country, with renewable sources such as wind and solar now making up more than 40% of our supply—a fourfold increase in just 10 years. The UK was also the first major economy to sign net-zero emissions by 2050 into law. Just last month, we created a new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. We tasked it with securing that long-term energy security and supply, bringing down bills and halving inflation.
IR 2023 reinforces the argument for even more investment in the UK science and tech ecosystem while we continue to manage the risks from rapid technological change. We will increase our resilience for the long term by surging investment into these areas. That is why we are committing to spending £20 billion a year on R&D by 2024-25 and why we have reorganised government to enable better focus and dynamism in an area that is critical for our future prosperity and security. Two years ago, we sent a clear message about what the UK stands for as an independent actor on the global stage. We committed to work with our allies and partners to shape an open, stable international order. Today, in a more geopolitically contested and less safe world, the IR refresh ensures that we continue that success as we continue to prioritise the British people’s way of life.
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