- force in January 2022, the joint team has sight of all notifications under the new Act, and provides advice ***.
- ***[1]
- The Joint State Threats Assessment Team (JSTAT), NCSC and DI also provide *** reports to inform the work of the ISU.[2] In addition, the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF)—a collaboration between the UK Government and the British Business Bank—provides ad hoc advice to policy-makers in respect of investment security matters.[3]
- MoD also provides subject matter expertise and advice to help inform investment scrutiny processes and export licensing decisions (the latter being a separate issue from foreign investments, but nevertheless highly relevant to the protection of the UK's IP. A new Defence Investment Security Team was established in 2017 to co-ordinate this work within the Department and link into wider cross-Government investment security processes. CDI told the Committee:
we provide advice both through [the cross-Government investment security process] and directly to the Department of International Trade on end user[s] of high-tech goods and looking at export licence applications. So in 2017 there were *** export licence applications for China looking at the security goods; [in] 2019, there were ***, so they are expanding; we've received over *** this year so far. That proportion is probably about ***% of the export licences that we review using the intelligence available to us and so far this year we’ve recommended a refusal of *** of those applications, because we believe they’ve met the threshold where those technologies should not be transferred out to China. Then, of those, over *** have been refused by DIT, *** are still being considered and *** were overturned.[4]
OneWeb
In July 2020, the UK Government announced that it was investing $500m in order to acquire the satellite technology company OneWeb, as part of a consortium with Indian telecommunications conglomerate Bharti Global. OneWeb, which had filed for bankruptcy in March 2020, is constructing a global satellite constellation to provide "enhanced broadband and other services to countries around the world".[5]
- ↑ Written evidence—HMG, 18 April 2019.
- ↑ Written evidence—MI5, 31 January 2022.
- ↑ Written evidence —***, 25 May 2021. Established as part of the 2017 Budget, the NSSIF aims "to accelerate the adoption of HMG's future national security and defence capabilities and the development of the UK's dual-use technology ecosystem". (British Business Bank website, www.british-business-bank.co.uk/national-security-strategic-investment-fund)
In a November 2021 speech, the Chief of SIS acknowledged: "We cannot match the scale and resources of the global tech industry, so we shouldn't try." Instead, through the NSSIF, SIS and the broader Intelligence Community are "opening up our mission problems to those with talent in organisations that wouldn't normally work with national security". (Chief of SIS's speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’, GOV.UK, 30 November 2021.)
- ↑ Oral evidence—DI, *** December 2020.
- ↑ 'UK government to acquire cutting-edge satellite network', HMG press release, 3 July 2020.
143
