On 11 July, the National Security Bill became law after being
passed by both Houses of Parliament and securing Royal Assent.
This new act brings together vital new measures to protect the
British public, modernise counter-espionage laws and address the
evolving threat to our national security.
With this new legislation, the UK is now a harder target for
those states who seek to conduct hostile acts against the UK,
which include espionage, foreign interference (including in our
political system), sabotage, and acts that endanger life, such as
assassination.
The new powers will help ensure that the UK remains the hardest
operating environment for malign activity undertaken by foreign
actors.
Russia remains the most acute threat to the UK’s security, though
we have seen interference from China including to communities
here in the UK, and Iran has made concerted efforts to kill or
kidnap British or UK-based individuals.
Security Minister said:
We are facing growing threats from foreign states. Over the past
years, we’ve seen attempts to harm our people, damage our economy
and undermine our democracy.
Iran’s recent attempts to kidnap or kill people living in the UK
are beyond contempt and a fundamental violation of our
sovereignty.
The National Security Act provides the tools to expose this type
of activity and hold those responsible to account.
The National Security Act overhauls our outdated espionage laws
and will provide our law enforcement and intelligence agencies
with new and updated tools to deter, detect and disrupt
modern-day state threats. For the first time, there is an offence
of foreign interference, meaning it will now be illegal to engage
in conduct that interferes with fundamental rights, such as
voting and freedom of speech, that are essential to the UK’s
democracy.
These powers will apply to an individual acting on behalf of any
state, which means the UK will be better equipped to tackle the
full spectrum of malign activity, whether in the form of
disinformation, cyber-attacks, electoral interference or even
physical attacks, including the barbaric use of chemical weapons.
Director General of MI5, Ken McCallum said:
We face state adversaries who operate at scale and who are not
squeamish about the tactics they deploy to target people and
businesses in the UK.
The National Security Act is a game-changing update to our
powers. We now have a modern set of laws to tackle today’s
threats.
The act also introduces a new Foreign Influence Registration
Scheme (FIRS), which criminalises those acting covertly for
states which pose the greatest threat to our national security
and strengthens the resilience of UK democracy by bringing
transparency to foreign political influence.
The scheme has been created to tackle covert influence in the UK,
it is split into two parts: the political tier of FIRS makes any
political influence activity undertaken at the direction of a
foreign power registerable; and the enhanced tier – which is
designed to target those countries that pose a risk to the safety
or interests of the UK – will require registration of
arrangements that are entered into with a specified foreign
power, or entity controlled by a foreign power. Failure to
register when required will be a criminal offence.
