76. The recent changes in resourcing to counter Russian Hostile State Activity are not (or not only) due to a continuing escalation of the threat – but appear to be an indicator of playing catch-up. SIS and GCHQ planned to change their operational effort against Russia still further – to ***% and ***% respectively by 2020.[1] MI5 is *** and seeking to *** on Hostile State Activity. All three organisations were clear that this was about relative priorities. For example, MI5 told us that:
We quite frequently find ourselves quarter on quarter taking *** decisions about … how we will *** across these different subject areas and at the moment we have stuck with some of the resourcing that's surged towards hostile state work after Salisbury, despite the fact that our CT [Counter-Terrorism] investigations suspensions rate remains higher than we want it to be.[2]
In this respect, it must be a matter for Ministers. The Home Secretary told us that, in his view, resourcing on Russia *** and that there "needs to be more resources in … countering the Hostile State Activity".[3] He did, however, caution that the threat is wider than Russia alone and the growth in Russia-focused resources cannot be at the expense of efforts on other escalating threats. The Foreign Secretary similarly recognised the importance of not ignoring other priorities:
One of my concerns is that some of the short-term problems that Russia is causing us that we are having to address is actually crowding out thinking that we need to be doing on the longer-term changes to the international order, namely the rise of China. So I have been trying to make sure that we find time to actually look at what is changing in the world in its entirety.[4]
77. With pressures from International Counter-Terrorism work, the Chinese threat, Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, we recognise that it is difficult to single out the Russian threat as deserving greater allocation of effort. It is therefore essential that the strategy is right – enabling smarter working and effective co-ordination.
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