Policy paper - Global Britain in a Competitive Age: the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy

Foreword from the Prime Minister

When we began the Integrated Review in early 2020, we could not have anticipated how a coronavirus would trigger perhaps the greatest international crisis since the Second World War, with tragic consequences that will persist for years to come. COVID-19 has reminded us that security threats and tests of national resilience can take many forms.

Thanks to the fortitude of the British people and the monumental efforts of our NHS, the UK is emerging from the pandemic with renewed determination and optimism. Our journey to recovery has already begun and we are resolved to build back better, ensuring that we are stronger, safer and more prosperous than before. Yet if we are to escape the malign effect of the virus, the race to vaccinate and therefore protect people cannot stop at national borders. Hence the UK has joined other countries in the COVAX initiative to extend this campaign across the globe.

Having left the European Union, the UK has started a new chapter in our history. We will be open to the world, free to tread our own path, blessed with a global network of friends and partners, and with the opportunity to forge new and deeper relationships. Our Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU gives us the freedom to do things differently and better, both economically and politically. In the years ahead, agility and speed of action will enable us to deliver for our citizens, enhancing our prosperity and security.

My vision for the UK in 2030 sets high ambitions for what this country can achieve. The Union between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has proved its worth time and again, including in this pandemic. It is our greatest source of strength at home and abroad. Our country overflows with creativity in the arts and sciences: the wellsprings of unique soft power that spans the globe.

Few nations are better placed to navigate the challenges ahead, but we must be willing to change our approach and adapt to the new world emerging around us. Open and democratic societies like the UK must demonstrate they are match-fit for a more competitive world. We must show that the freedom to speak, think and choose – and therefore to innovate – offers an inherent advantage; and that liberal democracy and free markets remain the best model for the social and economic advancement of humankind.

History has shown that democratic societies are the strongest supporters of an open and resilient international order, in which global institutions prove their ability to protect human rights, manage tensions between great powers, address conflict, instability and climate change, and share prosperity through trade and investment. That open and resilient international order is in turn the best guarantor of security for our own citizens.

To be open, we must also be secure. Protecting our people, our homeland and our democracy is the first duty of any government, so I have begun the biggest programme of investment in defence since the end of the Cold War. This will demonstrate to our allies, in Europe and beyond, that they can always count on the UK when it really matters. We will exceed our manifesto and NATO spending commitments, with defence spending now standing at 2.2% of GDP, and drive forward a modernisation programme that embraces the newer domains of cyber and space, equipping our armed forces with cutting-edge technology. And we will continue to defend the integrity of our nation against state threats, whether in the form of illicit finance or coercive economic measures, disinformation, cyber-attacks, electoral interference or even – three years after the Salisbury attack – the use of chemical or other weapons of mass destruction.

As the attacks in Manchester, London and Reading have sadly demonstrated, the terrorist threat in the UK remains all too real – whether Islamist-inspired, Northern Ireland-related or driven by other motivations. Our security and intelligence agencies and law enforcement community work around the clock to stop would-be terrorists in their tracks, disrupting 28 planned attacks since 2017. We will continue to invest in this essential work, through increased funding for the intelligence agencies and Counter Terrorism Policing in 2021-22 and our drive to recruit an extra 20,000 police officers. And we will maintain constant vigilance in protecting British citizens from serious and organised crime.

We will also bring to bear new capabilities such as the Counter-Terrorism Operations Centre and the National Cyber Force. Learning from the pandemic, we will bolster our national resilience with a new Situation Centre at the heart of Government, improving our use of data and our ability to anticipate and respond to future crises. And we will deliver our goal of having the most effective border in the world by 2025, embracing innovation, simplifying the process for traders and travellers, and improving the security and biosecurity of the UK.

Keeping the UK’s place at the leading edge of science and technology will be essential to our prosperity and competitiveness in the digital age. Our aim is to have secured our status as a Science and Tech Superpower by 2030, by redoubling our commitment to research and development, bolstering our global network of innovation partnerships, and improving our national skills - including by attracting the world’s best and brightest to the UK through our new Global Talent Visa. We will lay the foundations for long-term prosperity, establishing the UK as a global services, digital and data hub by drawing on our nation’s great strengths in digital technologies, and attracting inward investment.

In 2021 and beyond, Her Majesty’s Government will make tackling climate change and biodiversity loss its number one international priority. Under my chairmanship, the UN Security Council recently held its first ever high-level meeting on the impact of climate change on peace and security. The UK was the first advanced economy to set a net zero target for 2050. We will now begin an unprecedented programme of new investment, taking forward our ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution by funding British research and development in green technologies, and helping the developing world with the UK’s International Climate Finance.

The creation of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is the springboard for all our international efforts, integrating diplomacy and development to achieve greater impact and address the links between climate change and extreme poverty. The UK will remain a world leader in international development and we will return to our commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on development when the fiscal situation allows. And we will maintain the other vital instruments of our influence overseas, such as our global diplomatic network and the British Council, driving forward campaigns for girls’ education and religious and media freedom.

British leadership in the world in 2021

2021 will be a year of British leadership, setting the tone for the UK’s international engagement in the decade ahead, through our presidency of the G7 and the Cornwall summit in June, the Global Partnership for Education, which we will co-host with Kenya in July, and culminating in the 26th UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in November, in partnership with Italy.

In 2021 the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, one of the two largest warships ever built for the Royal Navy, will lead a British and allied task group on the UK’s most ambitious global deployment for two decades, visiting the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. She will demonstrate our interoperability with allies and partners – in particular the United States – and our ability to project cutting-edge military power in support of NATO and international maritime security. Her deployment will also help the Government to deepen our diplomatic and prosperity links with allies and partners worldwide.

I am profoundly optimistic about the UK’s place in the world and our ability to seize the opportunities ahead. The ingenuity of our citizens and the strength of our Union will combine with our international partnerships, modernised armed forces and a new green agenda, enabling us to look forward with confidence as we shape the world of the future.

The image above consists of text with icons showing areas where the UK is world-leading.

• Defence and security: World-leading security and intelligence agencies, supported by over; £3bn of investment each year; 2nd highest defence spender in NATO and highest in Europe; 28 terror attacks disrupted in the UK since 2017; 2 tonnes of drugs, 77 firearms and £54m in criminal cash seized and 746 arrested under Operation Venetic.
• A science and technology superpower: Ranked 4th in the Global Innovation Index; Home to leading medical research, such as the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine; UK has won the 2nd highest number of Nobel Prizes, with 99 Nobel laureates; 3rd in the world for tech unicorns, with 77 tech companies values at over $1bn
• A global leader in diplomacy and development: 4th largest diplomatic network: 281 posts in 178 countries and territories; One of the largest funders of the WHO, increasing funding by 30% over four years, and the largest funder of Gavi; One of the largest bilateral and multilateral donors to global education, committed to getting 40m more girls into school by 2025; One of the largest donors and funding members of COVAX, which will supply 1bn vaccine doses in 2021, vaccinating up to 500m people in over 90 developing countries; The UK has a seat in every major multilateral organisation: NATO, World Bank and IMF, OSCE, UN Human Rights Council in 2021-22, G7 (President 2021), Commonwealth, Founding member of the UN, P5 member of the UN Security Council, G20, Council of Europe
• A soft power superpower: 3rd ranked soft power in the world; The BBC is the most trusted broadcaster worldwide, reaching 468m people every week, in 42 languages; The British Council operates in over 100 countries
• Our economy: 11.5% of all global foreign-listed companies worldwide are listed on the London Stock Exchange; 5th largest economy in the world; The UK space industry generates an income of £14.8bn annually, with more satellites produced in Scotland than any European country; 3rd top destination for private technology investment, ahead of the rest of Europe
• A responsible cyber power: 3rd most powerful cyber nation in the world, ranking top in defence, intelligence, norms and offensive capabilities; Belfast is a world-leading cyber security hub, and a top international investment location for cyber security firms; UK cyber network covers 122 countries across 6 continents; Major sponsor of women in cyber across the globe, including 24 cyber fellowships in the Gulf and 14 across the Commonwealth
• A world leader in climate action: From 2021 to 2026, the UK will committee £11.6bn to International Climate Finance, including £3bn for nature financing; UK reduced its emissions by over 40% between 1990-2018; Wales is home to world-leading hydrogen research and development facilities, such as Cardiff University’s Gas Turbine Research Centre; Established the world’s first dedicated diplomatic green network - the Climate Change and Energy Network. UK’s climate finance has leveraged £4.1bn public and £2.2bn private finance for climate action across Africa, Asia and Latin America

Overview

The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy (Integrated Review) concludes at an important moment for the United Kingdom. The world has changed considerably since the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review, as has the UK’s place within it. Our departure from the European Union (EU) provides a unique opportunity to reconsider many aspects of our domestic and foreign policy, building on existing friendships but also looking further afield. We must exploit the freedom that comes with increased independence, such as the ability to forge new free trade deals. We must also do more to adapt to major changes in the world around us, including the growing importance of the Indo-Pacific region. Our ability to cooperate more effectively with others, particularly like-minded partners, will become increasingly important to our prosperity and security in the decade ahead.

At the heart of the Integrated Review is an increased commitment to security and resilience, so that the British people are protected against threats. This starts at home, by defending our people, territory, critical national infrastructure (CNI), democratic institutions and way of life – and by reducing our vulnerability to the threat from states, terrorism and serious and organised crime (SOC).

In strengthening our homeland security, we will build on firm foundations in counter-terrorism, intelligence, cyber security and countering the proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons. We will seek to match this excellence in other areas, through enhanced capabilities and appropriate legal powers that equip us to meet rapidly changing threats. We will also ensure that science and technology (S&T) is elevated to the highest importance as a component of our national security, with a particular emphasis on growing our cyber power.

In keeping with our history, the UK will continue to play a leading international role in collective security, multilateral governance, tackling climate change and health risks, conflict resolution and poverty reduction. We accept the risk that comes with our commitment to global peace and stability, from our tripwire NATO presence in Estonia and Poland to on-the-ground support for UN peacekeeping and humanitarian relief. Our commitment to European security is unequivocal, through NATO, the Joint Expeditionary Force and strong bilateral relations. There are few more reliable and credible allies around the world than the UK, with the willingness to confront serious challenges and the ability to turn the dial on international issues of consequence.

The Integrated Review also signals a change of approach. Over the last decade, UK policy has been focused on preserving the post-Cold War ‘rules-based international system’ which has greatly benefited the UK and other nations. Today, however, the international order is more fragmented, characterised by intensifying competition between states over interests, norms and values. A defence of the status quo is no longer sufficient for the decade ahead.

The Integrated Review therefore recognises the need for a sharper and more dynamic focus in order to: adapt to a more competitive and fluid international environment; do more to reinforce parts of the international architecture that are under threat; and shape the international order of the future by working with others. In particular, we will increase our efforts to protect open societies and democratic values where they are being undermined; and to seek good governance and create shared rules in frontiers such as cyberspace and space.

Our foreign policy rests on strong domestic foundations, in particular our security, resilience and the strength of our economy. It also, crucially, depends on a bond of trust with the British people. Polling in the UK shows deep reserves of faith in bodies like the UN and NATO and the pillars of British defence such as the armed forces and the nuclear deterrent. This is bolstered by high levels of trust in the power of S&T to tackle domestic and international challenges, as we have seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet the international order is only as robust, resilient and legitimate as the states that comprise it. Liberal democracies must do more to prove the benefits of openness – free and fair trade, the flow of capital and knowledge – to populations that have grown sceptical about its merits or been inadequately protected in the past from the downsides of globalisation. This means tackling the priority issues – health, security, economic well-being and the environment – that matter most to our citizens in their everyday lives. In the years ahead, our national security and international policy must do a better job of putting the interests and values of the British people at the heart of everything we do.

The Integrated Review

This publication sets out the principal conclusions of the Integrated Review. It comprises:

• The Prime Minister’s vision for the UK in 2030, from which the other outputs of the Integrated Review flow.
• The Government’s current assessment of the major trends that will shape the national security and international environment to 2030.
• A Strategic Framework that establishes the Government’s overarching national security and international policy objectives, with priority actions, to 2025.
• An outline of the approach we will take to implementing the Strategic Framework.
• A list of Spending Review (SR) 2020 decisions that support the Integrated Review, and a description of our use of evidence and the programme of domestic and international engagement which supported our work.

The document is intended as a guide for action for those responsible for aspects of national security and international policy across government, including in departments that would not previously have been considered part of the national security community. It will also inform spending decisions to be taken in future SRs.

The findings of the Integrated Review are publicly available so that the British people can understand how the Government will seek to protect and promote their interests and values. Given the Review’s strong emphasis on the need to work with others, we are also aware that it will be of interest to our allies and partners, especially in identifying the UK’s long-term objectives following our departure from the EU.

Our interests and our values: the glue that binds the Union

The Government’s first and overriding priority is to protect and promote the interests of the British people through our actions at home and overseas. The most important of these interests are:

• Sovereignty: the ability of the British people to elect their political representatives democratically in line with their constitutional traditions, and to do so free from coercion and manipulation. This encompasses the ability of citizens to protect their individual sovereignty within the rule of law, ensuring that their rights and liberties are protected, including online.
• Security: the protection of our people, territory, CNI, democratic institutions and way of life. Ensuring security in today’s world involves a growing range of activities: from tackling threats from states and non-state actors such as terrorists and organised crime groups; to building societal resilience so that we are better able to withstand risks and unexpected shocks, including future environmental and global health emergencies.
• Prosperity: the ability of the British people to enjoy a high level of economic and social well-being, supporting their families and seizing opportunities to improve their lives. This Government believes that true prosperity depends on the levelling-up of opportunity and doing more to share the benefits of economic growth across the UK. It also believes that our prosperity and security are mutually reinforcing.

These shared interests bind together the citizens of the United Kingdom, along with our Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, giving us an advantage in an increasingly competitive global environment and a distinctive and influential voice in the world. It is as the United Kingdom that we boast armed forces with global reach and have one of the most extensive diplomatic networks in the world, promoting British interests and providing round-the-clock consular assistance to British nationals abroad. It is by combining the resources of our Union and pooling the expertise of our citizens in areas such as science and health that we are able to respond to global challenges and project our influence overseas. It is as the United Kingdom that in 2021 we will host the G7 in Cornwall and 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow.

The Union is also bound by shared values that are fundamental to our national identity, democracy and way of life. These include a commitment to universal human rights, the rule of law, free speech and fairness and equality. The same essential values will continue to guide all aspects of our national security and international policy in the decade ahead, especially in the face of rising authoritarianism and the persistence of extremist ideologies. They are also expressed through our support for climate action and the UK’s leadership in poverty reduction around the world.

In most cases, the UK’s interests and values are closely aligned. A world in which democratic societies flourish and fundamental human rights are protected is one that is more conducive to our sovereignty, security and prosperity as a nation. In pursuing our goals to 2030, we will seek to make steady progress towards the protection and promotion of these values and democracy around the world.

At the same time, our approach will be realistic and adapted to circumstances. Our ability to tackle transnational challenges, from security to climate change, will depend on our capacity to work with a wide range of partners across the world, including those who do not necessarily share the same values.

The Government’s approach so far: Global Britain in action

The UK is a European country with global interests, as an open economy and a maritime trading nation with a large diaspora. Our future prosperity will be enhanced by our economic connections with dynamic parts of the world such as the Indo-Pacific, Africa and the Gulf, as well as trade with Europe. The precondition for Global Britain is the safety of our citizens at home and the security of the Euro-Atlantic region, where the bulk of the UK’s security focus will remain. As we look further afield, the future success of Global Britain requires us to understand the precise nature and extent of British strengths and the integrated offer we bring in other parts of the world. It is an approach that puts diplomacy first. As we engage more in the Indo-Pacific, for example, we will adapt to the regional balance of power and respect the interests of others – and seek to work with existing structures such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

What Global Britain means in practice is best defined by actions rather than words. The fundamentals of this Government’s approach to national security and international policy are reflected in the actions we have taken since the 2019 general election. They demonstrate an active approach to delivering in the interests of the British people: sustaining the UK’s openness as a society and economy, underpinned by a shift to a more robust position on security and deterrence. This runs alongside a renewed commitment to the UK as a force for good in the world - defending openness, democracy and human rights - and an increased determination to seek multilateral solutions to challenges like climate change and global health crises, as seen in our response to COVID-19.

For example, in seeking multilateral solutions, we have used the UK’s convening power on a range of issues across security, trade and development, including at the NATO Leaders Meeting of December 2019 and the Africa Investment Summit of January 2020. Under our ambitious environmental agenda, we have set a net zero target for 2050 and increased our commitment to International Climate Finance (ICF) to £11.6 billion. The UK also played a central role in negotiating the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature adopted in September 2020, committing world leaders to urgent action to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. These efforts have set up our year of leadership in 2021.

We have also led international efforts in response to COVID-19, under which we have:

• Hosted the Global Vaccine Summit in June 2020 and reinforced our position as the largest donor to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
• Committed up to £548 million to COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) to help provide developing countries with 1 billion doses of the vaccine in 2021. We will also send the majority of any future surplus coronavirus vaccines from our supply to the COVAX scheme.
• Launched a five-point plan at the UN General Assembly to protect the world from future pandemics.
• Established an informal network of government, industry and academics to advise the G7 on accelerating the development and deployment of vaccines for new pathogens in future.
• Offered our expertise in genome sequencing to support other countries in tracking new variants, building on the work of British researchers in sequencing 50% of the global database of coronavirus genomes. The findings of the UK’s Recovery Trial - the world’s largest clinical trial for COVID-19 treatments - have also prevented over a million deaths worldwide.

In strengthening our defence and security, and to play our part in burden-sharing with allies, we have:

• Made the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War, exceeding NATO’s 2% spending guideline and strengthening our most important alliance.
• Deployed 300 UK troops to Mali in December 2020 to support the UN’s peacekeeping mission, providing highly-specialised reconnaissance capability.
• Increased funding for counter-terrorism (CT) policing and introduced new legislation to improve our tools for fighting terrorism and state threats, including the Covert Human Intelligence Source Act, the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill and the National Security and Investment Bill.
• Made a significant breakthrough in the fight against SOC in June 2020, when we infiltrated the encrypted communications of criminals under Operation Venetic - the UK’s largest ever law enforcement operation.
• Disrupted cyber-attacks targeting vital national infrastructure, publicly attributing attacks to state actors where we had compelling evidence to do so.
• Published a pioneering ethical framework in February 2021 to guide the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) by the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) across its missions - from tackling SOC to disrupting state-based disinformation campaigns.
• Demonstrated global leadership on reducing space threats, working with like-minded nations to deliver a UN General Assembly resolution that reshapes the international debate on threats to the space systems on which we rely.

As part of our efforts to defend human rights and support vulnerable people, we have:

• Introduced a new system of ‘Magnitsky’ sanctions to target human rights violators and abusers around the world. We were the first European country to announce sanctions against the regime in Belarus in September 2020.
• Offered British Nationals (Overseas) and their eligible family members the right to live and work in the UK, putting them on a path to British citizenship, when China breached a legally-binding agreement and imposed a repressive national security law on Hong Kong.
• Announced a package of measures to ensure that British organisations are neither complicit in nor profiting from the extensive human rights violations in Xinjiang, as part of our efforts to tackle modern slavery.
• Launched our tackling child sexual abuse strategy to drive action in the UK and internationally to disrupt and prevent offending, both online and offline.
• Supported vulnerable children’s education by funding the salaries of over 5,500 teachers in refugee camps in 10 countries through UNHCR. We have also adapted our bilateral programmes in response to COVID-19 to support girls who are hard to reach and at risk of leaving education permanently.
• Launched the Call to Action to Prevent Famine in September 2020 and appointed the UK’s first Special Envoy for Famine Prevention and Humanitarian Affairs. We have since pledged £180 million to tackle food insecurity and famine risk, providing aid to more than seven million vulnerable people in some of the world’s most dangerous places.

We have also pursued measures to enhance our long-term prosperity. For example:

• In under two years, we have secured trade agreements with 66 non-EU countries in addition to our Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU. We have also applied for accession to the CPTPP.
• We have published the 2025 UK border strategy, with the goal of creating a border that is efficient, smart and responsive.
• We have introduced a new points-based immigration system, including a new Global Talent Visa, to attract the best and brightest from around the world. This will ensure we can secure the talent we need for key sectors in our economy, treating EU and non-EU citizens equally.
• We have published a national research and development (R&D) roadmap. Learning from the successes of the Vaccines Taskforce, we have announced an independent Advanced Research and Invention Agency, which will be led by scientists with the freedom to identify and fund transformational science and technology at speed.

In 2021, we will build on this work by convening the G7 and hosting COP26 in partnership with Italy and the Global Partnership for Education with Kenya. Our most immediate priority will be to build back better from COVID-19, demonstrating the benefits of international cooperation. In addition, we will pursue an extensive multilateral agenda on climate change, global health, free and fair trade and economic resilience. We will continue to work with others to reform and strengthen the institutions that support those objectives, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Trade Organization (WTO).

The Government’s long-term approach to 2030

To meet the Prime Minister’s vision for 2030, we will need a long-term strategic approach – combining all the instruments available to government – that continues to adapt to a changing international environment. This is a context defined by: geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts, such as China’s increasing international assertiveness and the growing importance of the Indo-Pacific; systemic competition, including between states, and between democratic and authoritarian values and systems of government; rapid technological change; and transnational challenges, such as climate change, biosecurity risks, terrorism and SOC.

Against this uncertain backdrop, the unifying purpose of the UK’s national security and international policy is to ensure that the things that define us as a nation – our open society and economy founded on democratic values – remain sources of strength and comparative advantage, driving prosperity and improving the well-being of people across the Union.

In the more contested environment of the 2020s, this requires us to be more active in creating a world in which open societies and economies can flourish, shaping the open international order of the future – championing free trade and global cooperation, tackling conflict and instability, and standing up for democracy and human rights. We must also strengthen our security and resilience against those who seek to coerce us, and make it harder for terrorists and organised crime groups to achieve their goals.

The ability to move swiftly and with greater agility, amplifying our strong, independent voice by working with others, will be the determining characteristic of the UK’s foreign policy following our departure from the EU. Our effectiveness will also depend on our ability to maintain a consistent level of international influence, maintaining the soft and hard power capabilities required to support this. We must be prepared to compete with others, and to find new ways to cooperate through creative diplomacy and multilateralism.

In the years ahead we will need to manage inevitable tensions and trade-offs: between our openness and the need to safeguard our people, economy and way of life through measures that increase our security and resilience; between competing and cooperating with other states, sometimes at the same time; and between our short-term commercial interests and our values. Maintaining a long-term perspective will help us navigate the path ahead. Preserving our freedom of action will also enable us to adapt to circumstances as they change.

Introducing our Strategic Framework to 2025

As the outcome of the Integrated Review, we have established a Strategic Framework, which responds to prevailing trends in the international context and is intended to provide handrails for future policy-making to deliver our long-term approach. The Framework sets the Government’s overarching national security and international policy objectives to 2025. It identifies how we can bring all the instruments available to the Government together to achieve these objectives. It does not provide detailed regional and country strategies or an exhaustive description of all the activity we will undertake in the coming years. Instead, it sets a foreign policy baseline and identifies priority actions, reflecting the need for flexibility in our approach and setting out where further policy work and new sub-strategies are required.

The Strategic Framework has been used to guide spending decisions under SR 2020, including departmental settlements and funding for several new initiatives (see Annex A). Future SRs will also be informed by this Framework and will provide further opportunities to align resources with ambition.

The four overarching and mutually supporting objectives set by the Strategic Framework are:

• Sustaining strategic advantage through science and technology: we will incorporate S&T as an integral element of our national security and international policy, fortifying the position of the UK as a global S&T and responsible cyber power. This will be essential in gaining economic, political and security advantages in the coming decade and in shaping international norms in collaboration with allies and partners. It will also drive prosperity at home and progress towards the three objectives that follow.
• Shaping the open international order of the future: we will use our convening power and work with partners to reinvigorate the international system. In doing so, we will ensure that it is one in which open societies and open economies can flourish as we move further into the digital age – creating a world that is more favourable to democracies and the defence of universal values. We will seek to reinforce and renew existing pillars of the international order – such as the UN and the global trading system – and to establish norms in the future frontiers of cyberspace, emerging technology, data and space.
• Strengthening security and defence at home and overseas: we will work with allies and partners to address challenges to our security in the physical world and online. NATO will remain the foundation of collective security in our home region of the Euro-Atlantic, where Russia remains the most acute threat to our security. We will also place greater emphasis on building our capacity and that of like-minded nations around the world in responding to a growing range of transnational state threats^{[footnote 1]}, radicalisation and terrorism, SOC and weapons proliferation.

• Building resilience at home and overseas: we will place greater emphasis on resilience, recognising that it is not possible to predict or prevent every risk to our security and prosperity – whether natural hazards such as extreme weather events or threats such as cyber-attacks. We will improve our own ability to anticipate, prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from risks – as well as that of our allies and partners, recognising the closely interconnected nature of our world. And we will prioritise efforts to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss - long-term challenges that if left unchecked threaten the future of humanity - in addition to building global health resilience.

The UK will not be able to achieve these objectives working alone: collective action and co-creation with our allies and partners will be vitally important in the decade ahead – leading by example where we have unique or significant strengths (such as in areas of medical science, green technologies and aspects of data and AI) and identifying where we are better placed to support others in leading the advance towards our shared goals.

The Government will need to combine a planned strategy – which sets long-term objectives, anticipates challenges along the way, and charts a course towards them – with an adaptive approach. Essential to this is deeper integration across government, building on the Fusion Doctrine introduced in the 2018 National Security Capability Review. A more integrated approach supports faster decision-making, more effective policy-making and more coherent implementation by bringing together defence, diplomacy, development, intelligence and security, trade and aspects of domestic policy in pursuit of cross-government, national objectives.

The logic of integration is to make more of finite resources within a more competitive world in which speed of adaption can provide decisive advantage. It is a response to the fact that adversaries and competitors are already acting in a more integrated way – fusing military and civilian technology and increasingly blurring the boundaries between war and peace, prosperity and security, trade and development, and domestic and foreign policy. It also recognises the fact that the distinction between economic and national security is increasingly redundant.

We are already taking major steps towards greater integration across government, including:

• The creation of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), bringing our diplomatic and development expertise and policy together, as One HMG overseas.
• The Integrated Operating Concept 2025, which will deepen integration of UK defence across the five operational domains and with other instruments of state power, and improve interoperability with allies.
• New cross-cutting capabilities such as the Situation Centre, Counter Terrorism Operations Centre (CTOC), National Cyber Force (NCF) and a national capability in digital twinning.

Finally, the UK will also bring an integrated approach to working with others around the world – that is, we will combine hard and soft power, harness the public and private sector, and deploy British expertise from inside and outside government in pursuit of national objectives.

The national security and international environment to 2030

This section describes the Government’s assessment of the strategic context to 2030. Its judgements are drawn from the evidence base assembled during the Integrated Review (see Annex B), including external consultation, the public call for evidence and internal analysis.

The nature and distribution of global power is changing as we move towards a more competitive and multipolar world. Over the coming decade, we judge that four overarching trends will be of particular importance to the UK and the changing international order:

• Geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts: such as China’s increasing power and assertiveness internationally, the growing importance of the Indo-Pacific to global prosperity and security, and the emergence of new markets and growth of the global middle class.
• Systemic competition: the intensification of competition between states and with non-state actors, manifested in: a growing contest over international rules and norms; the formation of competing geopolitical and economic blocs of influence and values that cut across our security, economy and the institutions that underpin our way of life; the deliberate targeting of the vulnerabilities within democratic systems by authoritarian states and malign actors; and the testing of the boundary between war and peace, as states use a growing range of instruments to undermine and coerce others.
• Rapid technological change: technological developments and digitisation will reshape our societies, economies and change relationships – both between states, and between the citizen, the private sector and the state. S&T will bring enormous benefits but will also be an arena of intensifying systemic competition.
• Transnational challenges: such as climate change, global health risks, illicit finance, SOC and terrorism. These threaten our shared security and prosperity, requiring collective action and multilateral cooperation to address them. Of these transnational challenges, climate change and biodiversity loss present the most severe tests to global resilience and will require particularly urgent action.

These trends will overlap and interact, and the long-term effects of COVID-19 will influence their trajectory in ways that are currently difficult to predict.

The realistic optimum scenario is an international order in which these trends can be managed effectively, with nations coming together to revive multilateral cooperation, strengthen global governance and harness the opportunities ahead for growth and prosperity. We must also prepare for the possibility that the post-COVID international order will be increasingly contested and fragmented, reducing global cooperation and making it harder to protect our interests and values. The Strategic Framework that follows this chapter is designed to help us navigate the challenges ahead, laying out how we will work with others, maximising opportunities and minimising risks to the UK

Venn diagram of the four main global trends to 2030 as highlighted in the Integrated Review: geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts; systemic competition; rapid technological change; transnational challenges. In each circle there are icons representing the different themes that come under each trend.

Strategic Framework

Sustaining strategic advantage through science and technology

The rapid pace of change in science and technology (S&T) is transforming many aspects of our lives, fundamentally reshaping our economy and our society, and unlocking previously inconceivable improvements in global health, well-being and prosperity. As competition grows between states, S&T will also increase in importance as an arena of systemic competition. In the years ahead, countries which establish a leading role in critical and emerging technologies will be at the forefront of global leadership.

The UK has a strong record of innovation in S&T - discovering graphene, decoding the structure of DNA, and contributing life-saving treatments and a vaccine to the global effort against COVID-19. In the fast-evolving and more contested environment ahead, the UK must take an active approach to building and sustaining a durable competitive edge in S&T - anticipating, assessing and taking action on our S&T priorities to deliver strategic advantage for the UK. This will become increasingly important to our domestic prosperity and our international relationships in the coming decade. It is also an essential foundation for all the objectives in this Strategic Framework: ensuring that the UK has the tools and influence to shape a future international order based on democratic values; bolster our security and maintain military advantage; and contribute to building a more resilient world.

Our first goal is to grow the UK’s science and technology power in pursuit of strategic advantage. Achieving this objective requires a whole-of-UK effort, in which the Government’s primary role is to create the enabling environment for a thriving S&T ecosystem of scientists, researchers, inventors and innovators, across academia, the private sector, regulators and standards bodies, working alongside the manufacturing base to take innovations through to markets. It also requires strategic choices and decisions by the Government, both on S&T priorities and on how we use our national S&T capability in support of wider policy goals - from net zero through to economic growth.

Our second goal is to cement the UK’s position as a responsible and democratic cyber power, able to protect and promote our interests in, and through, cyberspace. The cyber domain is unique in that it is man-made, subject to rapid technological change, and at an early stage in the evolution of its rules and norms; all of which combine to create enormous opportunity and risk. Over the past decade we have established the UK as a cyber power, building cutting-edge defensive and offensive cyber capabilities, and a leading cyber security sector. In the digital age, sustaining this competitive edge in cyber will be a fundamental component of strategic advantage through S&T.

Growing the UK’s science and technology power

The UK is already an S&T power. As well as our deep and broad research base, we are ranked fourth in the Global Innovation Index (2020), attract significant venture capital - at a level that exceeds that of Germany, France and Sweden combined - and are a world leader in applied innovation and transformative tech.

The UK nevertheless needs to maximise its innovation potential, ensuring that ideas translate into practical applications which enhance everyday life and contribute to productivity, economic growth and international influence. A common problem in the UK innovation landscape is that although support is available for early-stage R&D, it often falls away before ideas are fully commercialised and brought to market. As a result, innovation and intellectual property sometimes move out of the UK before companies are able to mature into commercial successes.

Building a durable competitive edge in S&T depends on ensuring that the success of our research base translates into influence over the design and use of critical and emerging technologies. This requires the creation of a favourable environment - ranging from a talented workforce and strong science infrastructure, to speed of commercialisation, our ability to attract trusted international partners, and ethical and legal frameworks that foster public trust and early adoption. To achieve this, our priority actions will be:

• To build on the UK’s successful S&T base. The Government has committed to increasing economy-wide investment in R&D to 2.4% of GDP by 2027, including through inward investment. Through the R&D roadmap, we will ensure that public R&D spending continues to support discovery research and increase investment in applied research, development and implementation. We will also take greater account of place-based outcomes, ensuring that public spending on R&D unlocks growth and societal benefit across the UK. We will accept more risk in our public investments, supporting the most creative, innovative and radical ideas for future development. We will invest at least £800 million to set up an independent body for high-risk, high-reward research: the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), which will back breakthrough technologies and basic research through experimentation.
• To unlock the full potential of the UK’s S&T and data ecosystem by improving and accelerating the ‘pull through’ from research to commercialisation. The Government will use all the levers at its disposal to develop the infrastructure, business and regulatory environment to support innovation and adoption across the UK economy. We will do this in partnership with all of the British S&T community, within Government and across the devolved administrations, academia, the private sector, the financial sector, regulators and standards bodies. The Government’s plan for growth and the digital and national data strategies will be core planks of this effort, supported by the pro-growth, pro-innovation regulatory reforms set out in the white paper on regulation for the fourth industrial revolution. We will improve access to finance, including from specialist investors able to provide longer-term capital to promising companies across all stages of growth. We will make the UK the best place in the world to be a researcher, inventor or innovator, strengthening our talent offer through the newly-established Office for Talent and the introduction of the Global Talent Visa.
• To better protect our intellectual property and sensitive research. We will support the research and innovation sector through the Trusted Research programme and act to protect our organisations, capabilities and skills where there is a national security case – including by ensuring companies can access investment safely.

• To improve our ability to identify, build and use the UK’s strategic S&T capabilities. We will establish new S&T horizon-scanning, assessment and policy capabilities within government, to anticipate and assess priorities as we pursue strategic advantage. We will also adopt an own-collaborate-access framework (see S&T power textbox) to guide strategic decisions on building and using capability in priority areas of S&T: first, where the potential for social and economic benefit is greatest, or progress helps tackle the most pressing global challenges; and second, where the UK is capable of establishing a leading position, or future dependence on non-allied sources of supply carries unacceptable risks to our national interests.
• To build a strong and varied network of international S&T partnerships, as an essential component of the own-collaborate-access framework and to shape the responsible use of technology. We will develop a new framework for international science partnerships, putting S&T at the heart of our alliances and partnerships worldwide. Our new Technology Envoy to the US will strengthen the UK’s relationships in Silicon Valley. The UK-EU deal will support continued collaboration between researchers and scientists, through Horizon Europe, the Euratom Research and Training programme and Copernicus. We will maintain the UK’s leadership in multilateral research and innovation organisations and networks such as Eureka. And we will continue to use ODA to support R&D partnerships with developing countries, sharing research expertise in support of the SDGs.
• To adopt ‘business science’ approaches, using commercial ways of working within government. This will support the own-collaborate-access framework, ensuring that the UK is able to access a wide range of technology without buying it outright or inventing it here: improving models for partnerships; pooling resources within government, across the public and private sectors, and with other countries; and using acquisitions and options-based deals alongside cooperation and collaboration.

The Government will also develop its partnership with academia and industry in supporting the technological innovation integral to the UK’s national security, for which it has a fundamental responsibility. The Government funds roughly 85% of military R&D, delivering both essential capabilities and strengthening the wider S&T ecosystem.

Through the Ministry of Defence (MOD) science and technology strategy 2020, we will prioritise higher-risk research to support the modernisation of our armed forces. Over the next four years, we will invest at least £6.6 billion of defence funding in advanced and next-generation R&D to deliver an enduring military edge in areas including space, directed energy weapons, and advanced high-speed missiles. A network of MOD innovation hubs within UK technology clusters and investment in Defence and Security Accelerator challenges will improve the ‘pull through’ of this R&D investment into cutting-edge equipment. The forthcoming defence and security industrial strategy will support this, creating a more certain environment for industry that enables investment to support innovation and convert it into deployable national security capabilities and future commercial opportunities.

We will also explore more agile and affordable routes to innovation that strengthen our wider national security. The National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF) is the Government’s corporate venturing arm for dual-use advanced technologies, supporting long-term equity investment to accelerate the adoption of new capabilities in areas such as audio and visual processing, computational behavioural analysis and identity technologies. And through the National Security Technology and Innovation Exchange (NSTIx), we are taking a coordinated and systematic approach to technology development, including by establishing a cross-government network of co-creation spaces to bring together expertise and specialist facilities from across government partners, the private sector and leading academic S&T communities. This will support the development of effective, user-driven technology at pace and at scale in areas that are critical to national security, including data science, AI and protective security.

Responsible, democratic cyber power

Cyber power is the ability to protect and promote national interests in and through cyberspace: to realise the benefits that cyberspace offers to our citizens and economy, to work with partners towards a cyberspace that reflects our values, and to use cyber capabilities to influence events in the real world. Like wider S&T power, cyber power depends on the Government pursuing a whole-of-nation effort, bringing together industry and academia in partnership. It also involves engaging citizens, who have a central role to play in our national cyber security.

In the digital age, the UK’s cyber power will be an ever more important lever for delivering our national goals. Cyber power protects our national security and the resilience of our CNI. It supports economic growth, enabling businesses and individuals to transition confidently to the digital world, boosting productivity and driving the innovation that will create new skilled jobs. It also creates new ways to pursue and protect our interests, enabling us to detect, deter and disrupt our adversaries in cyberspace and on the ground, and to influence the global environment to ensure a safe and beneficial digital future for all.

Since 2011, the Government has pursued an ambitious national strategy and sustained programme of investment that have established the UK as a global leader in cyber, emulated by others. We have developed cutting-edge cyber capabilities, including through the establishment of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the National Cyber Force (NCF). As well as building the capabilities needed for national security, this investment has also supported the development of a wider cyber ecosystem, including a thriving cyber security sector, with over 1,200 companies and 43,000 skilled jobs across the UK.

We will need to keep adapting, innovating and investing to maintain and extend the UK’s competitive edge as a responsible, democratic cyber power. Technology is changing, as is the way individuals and organisations make use of it. And our allies and adversaries are also investing in their capabilities, with adversaries constantly finding ways to exploit it for their own ends.

Cyber security is the foundation for cyber power, and has been the primary focus of our strategy to date. However, to cement our competitive edge, we will now adopt a comprehensive cyber strategy, taking a ‘whole-of-cyber’ approach that considers the full range of our capabilities and gives greater weight to building advantage in critical cyber technologies, as well as to international action to influence the future of cyberspace. To oversee this approach, we have formed a ministerial small group to cohere cyber decision-making across government.

The Government will publish the UK’s new cyber strategy in 2021. Under this strategy, our priority actions will be:

• To strengthen the UK’s cyber ecosystem, enabling a whole-of-nation approach to cyber and deepening the partnership between government, academia and industry. We will take a more coherent approach to skills, recruitment, R&D, exercising and innovation across defensive and offensive cyber: investing in an integrated education and training system to grow diverse talent; supporting a UK research base that can compete with allies and adversaries, as well as an industrial base that delivers innovative and effective cyber security products and services that help everyone stay safe in cyberspace; and developing regulations and policies that encourage a world-class cyber security ecosystem.
• To build a resilient and prosperous digital UK, where citizens feel safe online and confident that their data is protected. We will enable the digital transformation of the UK economy, bolstering our cyber security and ensuring our people, businesses and organisations are empowered to adopt new technology, and are able to withstand and recover from cyber-attacks. We will continue to invest in the NCSC, address critical vulnerabilities in the public sector and our CNI, including our data and digital infrastructure, and ensure the lessons from cyber-attacks are acted upon.
• To take the lead in the technologies vital to cyber power, such as microprocessors, secure systems design, quantum technologies and new forms of data transmission. We will support our growing industrial base, working within the own-collaborate-access framework to build advantage in critical technologies, pursue economic opportunities and, where needed, mitigate the risks of dependence on non-allied sources of supply. We will put in place the cutting-edge policy, regulatory and legal frameworks to enable the adoption of emerging applications of digital technology - for example in smart cities. We will also work with others to ensure the rules and standards governing digital technologies are rooted in democratic values.
• To promote a free, open, peaceful and secure cyberspace, as described in 2.3, working with other governments and industry, and drawing on the UK’s thought leadership in cyber security. We will also deepen and broaden our international partnerships to advance our shared security, prosperity and values, through stronger cyber resilience and joint action to uphold international norms, holding adversaries to account for breaches.
• To detect, disrupt and deter our adversaries. We will build seamless systems to detect and act with industry on cyber threat information at scale and pace. We will also make much more integrated, creative and routine use of the UK’s full spectrum of levers - our diplomatic, military, intelligence, economic, legal and strategic communications tools, and the new NCF (see textbox) - to impose costs on our adversaries, deny their ability to harm UK interests, and make the UK a more difficult operating environment. This will include tackling malicious activity in cyberspace and taking action online with real-world effect, for example in countering terrorist or organised crime groups, and to support military operations. We will also strengthen our criminal justice response to cyber-attacks.

Shaping the open international order of the future

The UK’s openness to the flow of trade, capital, data, ideas and talent is essential to our long-term prosperity. This international exchange will be critical in driving healthy competition, innovation and productivity growth as we build back better from COVID-19 and seek to level up across the nation. The ability of open societies and economies such as the UK to flourish in this way depends on the effective functioning of the international order - the laws, rules and norms that are used to manage international cooperation and competition, and the institutions that enable countries to come together to tackle shared problems.

In the more interconnected, multipolar and contested environment we will face in the coming decade, the UK must be more active in shaping the open international order of the future: using our convening power and working with others to ensure it is fit for the 21st century and more resilient to short-term shocks and long-term challenges. We must also work to restore a spirit of greater international cooperation, based on dialogue and compromise, while standing up for our values.

There are multiple systems of institutions, laws, rules and norms that comprise the international order. We must tailor our approach to the opportunities and challenges we face in each of them: in the increasingly digital global economy and newer domains of cyberspace and space, which are addressed in this chapter; and in the security and ecological systems, which are addressed in chapters 3 and 4.

The UK remains deeply committed to multilateralism. We prize our membership of many global bodies, of which the UN is the most important. We must strengthen those institutions that are vital to the future functioning of the international order, such as the WTO and WHO, and deepen our engagement in those that are growing in importance, including those governing technology standards. Where we become more involved in other parts of the world, we will work with existing bodies, such as ASEAN in the Indo-Pacific. And we will be active in seeking election to senior positions within international institutions where our interests and values are most directly at stake. In doing so, we will field strong candidates that represent the true diversity of our communities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Our first goal is to support open societies and defend human rights, as a force for good in the world. The international order is only as robust, resilient and legitimate as the states that comprise it. We will therefore support open societies - characterised by effective governance and resilience at home, and which cooperate with other countries on the basis of transparency, good governance and open markets.

Our second goal is to shape an open, resilient global economy, restoring trust in free and fair trade as we build back better from COVID-19. To do so, we must address the drivers of fragmentation and build the global economy of the future - one that is digital and sustainable. The UK economy must be more competitive within this landscape, as a global services, digital and data hub that delivers for all our citizens.

Our third goal is to shape the international order as it develops in future frontiers - in the domains of cyberspace and space, where the possibilities for economic, social and military activity are expanding rapidly, and existing rules and norms are struggling to keep pace. We will need to be active in ensuring effective accountability and oversight that protects democratic values, while opposing the overreach of state control.

A force for good: supporting open societies and defending human rights

Open societies are crucial building blocks in a sustainable international order, modelling inclusive, accountable and transparent governance. However, they - and the individual liberties on which they are built - are coming under growing pressure in the physical world and online. There has been a general decline in global freedom since the mid-2000s, with autocracies becoming stronger and more prevalent worldwide.

Our efforts to reverse this decline in global freedom must start at home, with open societies working together to strengthen our domestic governance and resilience, agree common agendas for future action, and tackle with speed and agility those challenges that undermine our citizens’ security and prosperity. Doing so is crucial in tending to the long-term health of our democracy, as well as in sustaining our soft power - our ability to attract and influence others (see textbox later in this section). It is this imperative that is driving our G7 agenda, working with our fellow members, and through outreach to Australia, India and South Korea, to build back better from COVID-19.

The UK will also work with allies, like-minded partners and civil society worldwide to protect democratic values, as part of our force for good agenda. In many instances, this will involve working bilaterally with countries to strengthen their domestic governance and to build their resilience to threats and hazards. In doing so, we will focus our efforts primarily in the wider European neighbourhood, East Africa and the Indo-Pacific, tailoring our approach to meet local needs and combining our diplomacy, development, trade, security and other tools accordingly. Our priority actions will be:

• To defend universal human rights, including by working with local civil society and human rights defenders. Alongside our traditional bilateral and multilateral efforts, including at the UN and the Council of Europe, we will use our independent sanctions regime to hold to account those involved in serious human rights violations and abuses.
• To promote gender equality, working with women’s rights organisations to tackle the discrimination, violence and inequality that hold women back. We will use our aid spending and diplomacy to pursue the goal of getting 40 million more girls into school in low- and middle-income countries by 2025, starting with the Global Partnership for Education summit in 2021. We will also promote women’s economic empowerment at the WTO, G7, OECD, the UN and World Bank, and in free trade agreements (FTAs).
• To promote effective and transparent governance, robust democratic institutions and the rule of law. The UK will support strong, transparent and accountable political processes and institutions overseas, including parliaments and political parties, through the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and other institutions. This work will be bolstered by a new UK capability to support election observation and activity to strengthen existing multilateral efforts. We will also establish a new global sanctions regime on corruption (see textbox) and reinvigorate our efforts to tackle illicit finance.

• To promote freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) overseas, taking forward the recommendations of the Bishop of Truro’s 2019 independent review and raising awareness of cases of particular concern - including through collaboration with the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance. In 2022, we will host an international ministerial conference to agree steps to advance FoRB for all.
• To defend press and media freedom including through our commitments to the Global Media Defence Fund, which we co-founded with Canada. Alongside our efforts to challenge censorship of the internet and digital media, we will promote appropriate protections against online harms. We will also tackle online violence, particularly where it is directed against women and girls, and help independent media in developing countries to establish new, resilient business models for the digital age. The independent work of the BBC World Service will also support media freedom.
• To end the practice of arbitrary arrest, detention or sentencing of foreign nationals to exercise leverage over other governments. We will support Canada’s initiative to end the arbitrary detention of foreign nationals - including those with dual nationality - without due process and the legal protections of a fair trial. This practice violates human rights obligations, is contrary to international law, undermines international relations and has a negative impact on foreign nationals travelling, working and living abroad.

Text box with icons highlighting four key areas of the UK’s soft power.

• Media and culture: The BBC is the most trusted broadcaster worldwide; the BBC World Service reaches 468m people every week, in 42 languages; The UK has vibrant creative and cultural industries. One in eight music albums sold around the world is by a UK artist. One quarter of global box office receipts are driven by UK-made films; Exhibitions from our museums and galleries reach over 500m people every year at home and abroad. Over 2021 and 2022, we will invest over £284m in government-sponsored galleries and museums. In 2022, Festival UK* will showcase the UK’s creativity and innovation to the world - bringing together science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics in ten large-scale public engagement acts; There are 32 UNESCO World Heritage Sites across the UK and our Overseas Territories, attracting visitors from around the world.
• Education: Nearly 500,000 overseas students chose to study in the UK in 2019, making the UK the 2nd most popular destination. Over 1 in 4 countries around the world has a Head of State or of Government who was educated in the UK; The British Council reaches 100m people in over 100 countries; 3 government scholarship schemes are available to the next generation of global leaders: the Commonwealth, Marshall, and Chevening scholarships.
• Sport: Since the London Olympics and Paralympics in 2012, the UK has secured over 100 major international sporting events. In 2021 we will co-host the UEFA Men’s EURO competition and in 2022 we will host the Women’s EURO competition and the Commonwealth Games; The Premier League broadcasts to 188 countries worldwide and welcomes international talent from over 100 countries. The Wimbledon Championships reach audiences across the globe, with over half a million visitors each year.
• People-to-people links: Our people have links all over the world: 9.5m people living in the UK were born outside the UK, and over 5m UK citizens live overseas; Over 40m overseas visitors came to the UK in 2019, contributing £28.4bn to the UK economy and promoting familiarity with our values; Our #loveisgreat campaign celebrates equality and diversity, raising awareness of the UK as a welcoming destination for international LGBTQ+ visitors.

An open, resilient global economy

Sustaining an open global economy - and the benefits it offers - is critical to our ambition to establish the UK as a global services, digital and data hub, laying the foundations for the long-term prosperity of our citizens. This will capitalise on UK-wide strengths in services and digital, underpinned by our capabilities as a global S&T power. It will also play well to many global economic trends, such as the growth in the global middle class and the centrality of data to global GDP. However, the open global economy is facing significant challenges that are putting considerable strain on the international institutions and ‘rulebook’ that govern it - with COVID-19 a further complicating factor.

We have an opportunity now to build back better from COVID-19, by working with our allies and partners to pursue economic recovery and rebuild consensus in support of free trade and investment - underpinned by renewed trust in the international economic system to deliver effective governance and provide stability.

Our approach will build on our long-standing successes in delivering benefits for UK economic competitiveness and consumers: our integration into the global economic and financial system provides access to essential items such as medical supplies, offers UK firms access to innovations and fast-growing markets for British goods and services around the world, and enables us to attract inward investment to support jobs and growth at home. Nevertheless, our recovery from this economic crisis must deliver more equitably for people across the UK.

Text box with icons grouped in bullet points highlighting a key stats about the UK economy.

Text: Total trade accounted for 62% of UK GDP in 2019. 5th in the world for exports of goods and services. UK FDI to GDP ratio is 72%, ahead of France (32%) and Germany (27%). Economy-wide investment in R&D will increase to 2.4% of GDP by 2027. The UK is a global leader in financial services, which in 2018 contributed £132bn to the UK economy (6.9% of GDP). There are 1.1m jobs in the financial services sector across the UK (3.2% of all jobs) - 65% of which are located outside of London. The digital sector contributed nearly £150bn to the UK economy in 2018 - an increase of 30% since 2010. In 2019, UK digital tech investment reached a record high of £10.1bn, up £3.1bn from 2018 - accounting for 33% of all European tech investment. There are 1.6m jobs and around 232,000 businesses in the UK digital sector, most of which are small and medium-sized enterprises. There were 485,000 international students in the UK in 2018-19, accounting for 20.7% of the total student population.

We must also work with others to increase the resilience of the global economy to short-term shocks and long-term distortions, and to prepare for the structural challenges of the future. This will involve creating rules that are fit for the 21st century, rooted in high standards and democratic values, better enabling open societies such as the UK to harness the future frontiers of economic growth. It will also support the integration of developing countries into the global economy.

In addition to accelerating the transition to a zero-carbon global economy, our priority actions will be:

• To nurture a strong UK economy that delivers for all citizens and is more competitive internationally. We will use all our domestic levers and our international trade agenda (see textbox) to foster productivity growth and innovation, so that all our people benefit as we build back better from COVID-19. Through our plan for growth and the digital strategy, we will invest in national infrastructure, innovation and skills, signalling our regional and sectoral priorities to guide private-sector investment. We will also anticipate and respond to the needs of those disadvantaged by the changing shape of our economy - for example, through jobs lost to automation or the effects of a greener economy on fuel poverty.
• To promote inward investment while minimising the potential risk to our national security. We will maximise the contribution of foreign direct investment (FDI) to economic growth across the UK through an updated investment strategy, our trade policy and the work of the new Office for Investment. Where necessary and proportionate, we will intervene in FDI transactions to protect national security, under the provisions of the National Security and Investment Bill and led by the new Investment Security Unit. The UK is committed to a transparent and predictable regulatory environment in response to a more complex set of threats.
• To revitalise free, fair and transparent trade by strengthening the global trading system and modernising the international rulebook, especially on the environment, services and the digital sector. Countries around the world - large or small, developed or developing - need to be able to compete. The UK will therefore work with allies and partners to reinvigorate the WTO so that its rules and agreements are better able to address current and future trade issues. As part of this, we will seek to re-establish a fully functioning dispute settlement mechanism. We will also do more with like-minded partners to challenge those who consistently pursue unfair, trade-distorting practices - such as forced technology transfer and subsidies - including through state-owned enterprises, and those who abuse self-designation rights in claiming developing country status.
• To establish global leadership in digital trade and support dynamic and competitive digital markets that deliver for all in UK society. Our goal is to maximise economic growth while managing the potential disruption caused by rapid innovation in areas from digital currencies to e-commerce and new business models that monetise data. The UK will use our leadership in digital trade to advance WTO negotiations on e-commerce and incorporate modern digital and data trade provisions in our FTAs. A new Digital Markets Unit - hosted by the Competition and Markets Authority - and a new mandatory code of conduct for dominant digital firms will be at the centre of our pro-competition regime for digital markets. Through our G7 presidency, we will support the OECD’s work to ensure digital companies pay the right amount of tax in each country in which they operate. We will also drive efforts to ensure that digital technical standards developed by international standards bodies deliver for all.
• To promote green trade as part of the solution to climate change and biodiversity loss. The UK will remain at the centre of WTO discussions on trade and the environment, exploring opportunities to liberalise environmental goods and services, mitigate carbon emissions, set standards and make progress towards a circular economy.
• To tackle economic crime and illicit finance, which fund organised crime groups, terrorists and other malicious actors, undermine good governance and faith in our economy, and tarnish our global reputation by allowing corrupt assets to be held in the UK. Under the 2019 Economic Crime Plan, we will: increase the number of trained financial investigators within our police forces; overhaul our Suspicious Activity Reports regime to ensure critical intelligence informs their investigations; and bolster the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC). As soon as parliamentary time allows, we will introduce legislation that tackles economic crime, including the use of UK corporate structures in facilitating high-end money laundering. This legislation will incorporate reform of Companies House registration and limited partnerships, and introduce a register of overseas entities owning property in the UK. In addition to promoting action on corporate transparency and accelerating asset recovery through our G7 presidency, we will use our strong relationships with other major financial markets, such as the US, to maximise our collective impact.
• To diversify the UK’s supply in critical goods, such as medical equipment and rare earth elements, through trade partnerships and international collaboration. Starting with our G7 presidency, we will: use market-led strategies, such as targeted trade promotion and lowering barriers to trade; develop multilateral approaches to assess global supply chain vulnerabilities, for example through the OECD; promote global standards to support a greater circular economy in line with our clean growth ambitions; and establish agreements to keep trade in critical goods open in times of crisis. Within the UK, we will continue to explore opportunities around domestic extraction and processing of critical minerals, such as lithium, as well as their recovery, recycling and reuse to establish a viable circular economy. The Government is already supporting a number of pilot projects across Cornwall through its ‘Getting Building Fund’, Local Enterprise Partnership and Smart Grants.

We will use the full range of domestic and international tools available to the Government in pursuing these actions: putting our independent trade policy at the centre of our international and national security policy; and using regulatory diplomacy to shape the standards and values that will underpin the global economy in the future, so that we are better able to compete. International cooperation will be essential, working multilaterally with the WTO and OECD, and with the G7, G20 and other groupings, to establish common approaches and demonstrate the benefits of cooperation in influencing multilateral debates.

Extending an open international order in future frontiers

As the world moves further into the digital and data-driven age, scientific discovery, emerging technologies and the ability to exploit huge quantities of data will open up new frontiers: rapidly expanding possibilities for economic, social and military activity in domains such as cyberspace and space. These future frontiers bring significant opportunity for future prosperity and well-being. But they will be subject to intense competition, raising important questions about the interaction between economic opportunity, security and ethics, and the balance between the role of the state, businesses and individuals.

To make the most of the opportunities ahead, we must ensure that these future frontiers evolve in a way that reflects democratic values and interests: with open and trusted markets, strong safeguards for human rights, norms of behaviour that reduce the risk of conflict and limit malign activity, and international cooperation to benefit our citizens and economies. The UK will work with our allies and partners - and wider stakeholders, including industry - to extend the open international order in future frontiers, ensuring effective accountability and oversight but opposing the overreach of state control.

Doing so will depend on our success in building a competitive edge in the technologies driving the development of the future frontiers - whether through our cyber and space capabilities, or growing our influence in areas such as AI. Building strategic advantage through S&T is therefore the foundation for our approach.

Our effort will involve three main strands of activity: engaging in industry-led technical standards development; developing regulatory frameworks governing infrastructure, technologies, data and commercial activity; and establishing the rules for responsible behaviour by states and non-state actors, which must be negotiated between states. Our priority actions to support this will be:

• To promote a free, open, peaceful and secure cyberspace. We will work with other governments and in partnership with industry to ensure that cyberspace is governed by rules and norms that enhance collective security, promote democratic values and support global economic growth, and counter the spread of digital authoritarianism. The UK will uphold the rule of law in cyberspace: embodying responsible state behaviour and shaping international best practice; and incentivising compliance, deterring attacks and holding others to account for irresponsible state behaviour. Where needed, we will shape new rules so that offensive cyber tools are developed and used responsibly and in accordance with international law.
• To protect an accessible and interoperable global internet for future generations, protecting the right for all to share information and communicate freely and safely over the internet. The UK will oppose efforts to bring management of the internet under restrictive inter-governmental control, redoubling our support for the multi-stakeholder model. We will also advocate for greater diversity in standards bodies.
• To ensure human rights are protected online as they are offline - promoting freedom of expression online, including through the Freedom Online Coalition, and protecting citizens from online harms, building on the UK’s pioneering approach to online safety (see textbox). As part of this, we will seek to ensure that lawful access to data is maintained as digital technologies and services develop, so that law enforcement and intelligence services have the capabilities to investigate the most serious crimes, while protecting individuals’ right to privacy.

• To ensure that transparency and accountability are embedded from the outset in the design and deployment of new technologies. The UK will work with industry, the British Standards Institution and other countries to influence new technical standards and develop new public policy approaches to technology which encourage innovation and interoperability, while protecting rights and freedoms. Through our G7 presidency, we will host the Future Tech Forum - bringing together governments, industry, academia and civil society in dialogue on a core set of principles to guide the evolution of the international technology ecosystem.
• To champion the international flow of data, enabling secure, trusted and interoperable exchange across borders, while maintaining data protection standards. The UK’s national data strategy aims to harness data to drive economic growth, support scientific research, improve policy and public services and create a fairer society; while ensuring that all data is used responsibly, in ways that are secure, ethical and accountable. We will seek to extend this approach to global data governance, working with our international partners to overcome barriers to data flows and promote international data standards that enable growth and innovation.
• To ensure a secure and sustainable space environment. We will continue to lead international efforts to develop norms, rules and principles of responsible behaviours in space, to reduce the risk of conflict, manage threats to the UK and our allies, and assure our freedom of action. The UK will also seek to shape the standards and regulations governing the civil use of space, to protect the space environment and to support the growth of a sovereign UK space industry. We will strengthen the resilience of the position, navigation and timing (PNT) services on which our CNI and economy depend; and use space assets to solve shared problems, supporting development efforts and disaster response.

Strengthening security and defence at home and overseas

The UK can only maximise the benefits of our openness if we are strong and secure at home – ensuring that our citizens are safe from harm, while protecting our democracy, the economy and the critical national infrastructure on which daily life depends. Security is also essential to an international order in which open societies and economies like the UK can flourish and collaborate in pursuit of shared goals, free from coercion and interference.

We will take a more robust approach in response to the deteriorating global security environment, adapting to systemic competition and a wider range of state and non-state threats enabled by technology. In doing so, we must improve our ability to detect, disrupt, defend against and deter the threats we face in the physical world and in cyberspace. These may be state threats above and below the traditional threshold of war, transnational security challenges such as terrorism and serious and organised crime (SOC), or a combination of these. We will demonstrate that we are able and willing to respond when our citizens and interests are targeted, including with force if necessary.

Equally, we must recognise that we cannot disrupt or deter every threat in our more interconnected world, in which the distinction between domestic and international security is increasingly blurred. We must therefore make it more difficult and costly for malign actors – both state and non-state – to achieve the effects they desire. This will involve reducing our vulnerabilities and improving our resilience to persistent threats. We must also minimise the opportunity for others to exploit conflict and instability for their own gain, and reinforce the governance and international architecture that help to preserve peace.

Cooperation with allies and like-minded partners will be fundamental to this effort. As a P5 member, we have a responsibility to contribute to international security. As a European power with global reach, we are well-placed to do so, through a broad, integrated security approach that addresses the spectrum of challenges to our shared security and prosperity. We will tailor our presence and support according to the country and region, continuing to focus our security efforts primarily on the Euro-Atlantic region and providing support in Africa - in particular in East Africa and to important partners in West Africa such as Nigeria - and in the Middle East. We will also place a greater emphasis than before on the Indo-Pacific, reflecting its importance to many of the most pressing global challenges in the coming decade, such as maritime security and competition linked to laws, rules and norms.

Our first goal is to counter state threats at home and overseas. We must improve our ability – and that of our allies and partners – to detect, understand, attribute and act in response to the spectrum of state threats we face: sharing risk and pooling capabilities through collective security; using our armed forces to disrupt and deter through persistent engagement overseas; and building our collective capacity to counter state threats in the physical world and in cyberspace.

Our second goal is to tackle conflict and instability. We will seek to address their long-term drivers, reduce the incidence and intensity of conflict, and minimise the opportunities for states and non-state actors to renegotiate power balances and to undermine international security.

Our third goal is to enhance UK homeland security by tackling transnational security challenges, addressing a range of increasingly overlapping threats to our security at home and overseas. These include radicalisation and terrorism, SOC, and the proliferation of CBRN capabilities and advanced military technology.

Countering state threats: defence, disruption and deterrence

State threats to the UK, and to our allies, are growing and diversifying as systemic competition intensifies. States are becoming increasingly assertive in how they advance their own objectives and in their willingness to undermine ours. While their actions often fall short of open conflict, they can nevertheless threaten and interfere with our security, open economy, democracy and social cohesion – risking escalation into war. State threats are persistent and take many forms, including espionage, political interference, sabotage, assassination and poisonings, electoral interference, disinformation, propaganda, cyber operations and intellectual property theft. These tools of coercion and interference can also be used in ‘hybrid’ combination with more traditional hard power methods.

Great power competition and the opportunism of states such as Russia, Iran and North Korea are key factors in the deterioration of the security environment and the weakening of the international order. But the dynamics of systemic competition are more complex and the UK faces threats from a wider range of states. Non-state actors also participate in this competition. They often use the same methods, such as cyber-attacks and disinformation, to target our citizens and exploit our openness for their own gain. And states increasingly work with non-state actors to achieve their goals, including as proxies in conflict. This affords them deniability and blurs the line between state threats and other types of security threats, such as terrorism and SOC.

The UK must improve its ability to detect, understand, attribute and act in response to aggression across the range of state threats, whether in the physical domain or in cyberspace, and whether military or non-military in nature. We must work with our allies and like-minded partners to do the same, so that together we are more resilient and our collective response is greater than the sum of its parts. This will enable us to manage escalation, by responding in the domain and at a time of our choosing. It will also strengthen open societies and economies, international security and the international order.

This means that responding to state threats can no longer be viewed as a narrow ‘national security’ or ‘defence’ agenda. We must bring together the elements of our work across this Strategic Framework at home and overseas, and all the instruments available to government, in an integrated response.

Defending the UK and our people, at home and overseas

The first responsibility of the Government is to defend the UK and its citizens. This includes our responsibility to ensure the security of the fourteen Overseas Territories (OTs) and the Crown Dependencies of the Bailiwick of Jersey, the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Isle of Man. We also have responsibilities to the five million British people that live outside the UK, and to British nationals on visits overseas. In fulfilling these responsibilities, our priority actions will be:

• To secure British territory against physical incursions. The Royal Navy will remain active in the UK’s territorial sea and Exclusive Economic Zone, including by investing in new capabilities to protect undersea CNI. The Royal Air Force (RAF) will continue to provide a 24-hour quick reaction alert force to defend UK airspace and our new Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft will patrol the North Atlantic from their base at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland.
• To support the OTs and Crown Dependencies in deterring and defending against state and non-state threats. The armed forces will continue to deter and challenge incursions in British Gibraltar Territorial Waters. Significant investment in the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus will assure our ability to contribute to security, with allies, in the Eastern Mediterranean. The armed forces will also maintain a permanent presence in the Falkland Islands, Ascension Island and the British Indian Ocean Territory; and a permanent maritime presence in the Atlantic and Caribbean, contributing to counter-trafficking operations and delivering humanitarian assistance and disaster relief during the annual hurricane season. We will promote the right of self-determination for the peoples of the OTs and continue to defend and represent internationally the three Crown Dependencies. We will uphold the UK’s Antarctic Treaty obligations, including around the British Antarctic Territory.
• To enhance the support and assistance available to UK nationals overseas, offering a wider choice of digital services for consular assistance. The armed forces will maintain readiness to evacuate British nationals caught up in events overseas when needed.

Defence and deterrence through collective security

The UK’s network of military alliances and partnerships is at the heart of our ability to deter and defend against state adversaries. It is also a powerful demonstration of the collective commitment to the free association of sovereign nations and the willingness to share the burden in maintaining an open international order.

NATO is the foundation of collective security in the Euro-Atlantic area, where our commitment to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty remains our most powerful deterrent. In an era of rapid developments in technology and doctrine, the Alliance must be equipped to deal with the full range of possible threats. These include long-range precision strike weapons, cyber weapons and weapons aimed at degrading space-based infrastructure. They also include malign activity intended to test the boundary between peace and war, and our resolve in response. Russia is the most acute threat in the region and we will work with NATO Allies to ensure a united Western response, combining military, intelligence and diplomatic efforts. We will continue to support closer practical cooperation between NATO and the EU in pursuit of this goal. We will cooperate with the EU on matters of security and defence as independent partners, where this is in our interest.

To bolster collective security with our allies - especially in the Euro-Atlantic and with a new emphasis on the Indo-Pacific - our priority actions will be:

• To reaffirm our commitment to leadership in NATO, supporting its adaptation to threats above and below the threshold of war under international law. We will increase our defence budget by over £24 billion over the next four years and remain the largest European spender on defence in NATO, with our expenditure now standing at 2.2% of GDP. We will continue to: commit a full spectrum of forces to the Alliance, from our nuclear deterrent to offensive cyber capabilities; make a leading contribution to NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence and Response Force; and ensure we are at the forefront of implementing NATO’s new Deterrence and Defence Concept. We will also continue to serve as a framework nation able to connect and coordinate NATO’s forces effectively, while more UK equipment will be prepositioned in Germany to facilitate rapid response. Operating across the Euro-Atlantic region, and with a focus on the northern and southern flanks of Europe, we will support collective security from the Black Sea to the High North, in the Baltics, the Balkans and the Mediterranean.
• To improve interoperability with our Euro-Atlantic allies. We will strengthen bilateral relationships – particularly, but not solely, with our key allies the United States, France (via the Lancaster House treaties and the CJEF) and Germany – as well as multilateral groupings such as the Joint Expeditionary Force, which comprises the UK, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
• To modernise the UK armed forces, maintaining a full spectrum of capabilities, as set out in the Defence Command Paper. We will prioritise the development and integration of new technologies – including those required for near-peer, high-tech warfighting – and a ‘digital backbone’ to enable multi-domain operations and interoperability with allies and partners. In the Euro-Atlantic, the UK will be one of only two NATO Allies to bring to bear nuclear, offensive cyber, precision strike weapons and fifth-generation strike aircraft. We will also contribute to missile defence, to space awareness and resilience (including through a new Space Command) and to CBRN resilience. A new generation of warships will support our historic role in keeping the North Atlantic open. Our highly mobile airborne and amphibious forces will be able to reinforce Allies at short notice. Our land force will undergo its most comprehensive modernisation for two decades, becoming better integrated with other domains, better able to intervene quickly and effectively over large distances, better protected from electronic, air and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle threats, and better able to engage an adversary at long range. Our Special Forces will be ready to operate in the most hostile environments and against our most sophisticated adversaries. With international partners including Italy and Sweden, we will continue to develop FCAS as a replacement for our Typhoon fast jets, drawing on ground-breaking technologies from the defence sector and beyond.
• To improve our ability to manage and de-escalate a multi-domain crisis, reflecting the increased intensity of competition from our potential adversaries and the more complex range of routes for escalation, including to nuclear coercion. The UK will run a series of national, strategic-level exercises to test resilience and our ability to navigate crises. We will actively support similar NATO and EU-NATO exercises.
• To sustain our commitment to collective security beyond the Euro-Atlantic, strengthening our ties and understanding. In particular, given the growing importance of the Indo-Pacific, we will reinforce our commitment to the FPDA and increase our regional maritime presence to support norms and laws in the region. In 2021, HMS Queen Elizabeth will lead a multinational task group on a global deployment, visiting the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.

Countering state threats to our democracy, society and economy

Our wider efforts to counter state threats will reinforce our collective security. We will seek to deter states from aggressive acts: through the prospect of punishment – by detecting, attributing and responding accordingly; and by denying them the opportunity to act, through reducing our vulnerabilities and improving our resilience. In the UK, this will involve bringing together the work of the Defending Democracy programme – a cross-government programme to protect our institutions and elected officials from intimidation, interference and espionage – with our efforts to protect our economic security, strengthen UK cyber security, enhance our national security communications and build our national resilience.

The experience of the 2018 Salisbury attack demonstrated the value of a collective response to aggression. Equally, some threats such as cyber-attacks and disinformation easily cross borders and require international action. We must therefore also work with allies and like-minded partners to strengthen their approach to state threats. This will involve deepening our security relationships in the wider Euro-Atlantic area, Africa and the Middle East, and with a greater emphasis on the Indo-Pacific. Through our support to others in capacity-building, we will: develop a shared understanding of the security threats we face, including through increased information-sharing; undertake joint education, training and exercises; and provide assistance and expertise in developing policy, legislation and regulatory frameworks.

Our priority actions will be:

• To take a whole-of-government approach to protecting democracy in the UK, supporting a democratic system that is fair, secure and transparent. Our goal under the Defending Democracy programme is to ensure the integrity of the UK’s democratic processes and sustain public confidence in them. We are enhancing government capabilities to ensure the safe delivery of democratic events. This includes operating structures such as the Election Cell, which provides a monitoring and response mechanism, and the cross-government Counter-Disinformation Unit. Our work programme will include: introducing voter ID at polling stations; improving the transparency of online political campaigning with a digital imprints regime; and introducing a new electoral sanction to tackle abuse. We are also increasing our efforts with international partners to defend democracy and champion shared values, including through our G7 presidency.
• To bolster our cross-government approach to countering state threats. We will reform laws, policies and practices to remove impediments to the protection of national security, ensuring that the security and intelligence agencies and police have appropriate powers to combat all the threats we now face while appropriately protecting the legal rights of individuals. We will introduce Counter-State Threats legislation when parliamentary time allows. This will revise existing offences - to deal more effectively with the espionage threat - and create new offences, to criminalise other harmful activity conducted by, and on behalf of, states. The legislation will also introduce a form of foreign agent registration scheme. Where legislation engages the Sewel Convention we will seek legislative consent, as well as taking on board views from and working with the devolved administrations.
• To ensure the future security of the UK telecoms network as the basis for secure and safe CNI. Under the provisions of the Telecommunications (Security) Bill, supported by the 5G supply chain diversification strategy, we will: manage and mitigate risks from high-risk vendors; introduce a new, robust security framework for telecoms to ensure our networks are secure and resilient to future challenges; and work with partners, including the Five Eyes, to create a more diverse and competitive supply base for telecoms networks.
• To strengthen cyber security capacity and cooperation with like-minded partners. Our bilateral capacity-building programmes will draw on the UK’s thought leadership and expertise in cyber security, in government and the private sector. They will: enhance partners’ political resilience to common state-related and other advanced persistent threats in cyberspace; build the resilience of overseas infrastructure; share information about supply chain threats and risks; and increase the capacity of cyber law enforcement partners. We will continue to extend our Five Eyes cooperation on cyber security policy and strengthen regional and multilateral platforms for capacity-building.
• To enhance efforts to counter disinformation at home and overseas. We will increase societal resilience in the UK to all forms of disinformation through a new regulatory framework under the Online Safety Bill, as well as a media literacy strategy. Investment in the Government’s behavioural science expertise, horizon-scanning and strategic communications will also help us to improve our response to disinformation campaigns. In addition to bilateral capacity-building programmes for priority partners overseas, the Counter Disinformation and Media Development programme will fund initiatives to understand and expose the disinformation threat and to support independent media, especially in Russia’s near abroad. We will also strengthen international cooperation through multilateral groups such as the G7.
• To use our armed forces to detect, understand and deter state threats below the threshold of war through persistent engagement overseas (see defence textbox). The UK will deploy more of our armed forces overseas more often and for longer periods of time, to train, exercise and operate alongside allies and partners across all our priority regions. Working bilaterally, with partners and in support of NATO missions, we will: build the capacity of others to deter and defend against state threats; support, mentor and, where necessary, assist nations in countering non-state challenges; and strengthen our network of relationships.
• To put diplomacy at the centre of international efforts to counter state threats, building international coalitions for attributing and responding to state threats, including through sanctions. We will also provide diplomatic and expert support to multilateral organisations that uphold international norms on security, such as NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe. This will include strong support to the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine and the Council of Europe’s attribution of Russia’s hostile and destabilising activity.

Conflict and instability

It will not be possible to prevent all conflicts through deterrence and building resilience to security threats. Conflict and instability will continue to pose a major test to global security and resilience, marked by weakened or failed states, extreme poverty and flourishing transnational security challenges. External intervention in conflicts is also increasing, as states seek to renegotiate power balances and contest international laws and norms.

The UK will work to reduce the frequency and intensity of conflict and instability, to alleviate suffering and to minimise the opportunities for state and non-state actors to undermine international security. Our bilateral efforts will focus on priority contexts where the increased threat and our ability to have an impact coalesce. We will also continue to support global efforts, including through: championing International Humanitarian Law; contributing specific capabilities in partnership with allies and multilateral organisations; our work at and with the UN; and as a financial and military contributor to UN peacekeeping missions. Our priority actions will be:

• To establish a more integrated approach to government work on conflict and instability, placing greater emphasis on addressing the drivers of conflict (such as grievances, political marginalisation and criminal economies), atrocity prevention and strengthening fragile countries’ resilience to external interference. We will focus on political approaches to conflict resolution, harnessing the full range of government capabilities, with clearly-defined political goals and theories of change. This will enhance our impact and reduce the risk of ‘mission creep’ or of inadvertently doing harm.
• To establish a new conflict centre within the FCDO. This centre will draw on expertise from across government and beyond to develop and lead a strategic conflict agenda, harnessing the breadth of conflict and stability capabilities and working with partners to increase our impact in preventing, managing and resolving conflict in priority regions.
• To build momentum on efforts to prevent sexual violence in conflict. In particular, we will work with others to strengthen justice for survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, as well as providing support to survivors and children born of conflict-related sexual violence. In doing so, we will continue to follow the ‘do no harm’ principle and take a survivor-centred approach.
• To tighten the focus of the cross-government Conflict, Stability and Security Fund. We will prioritise its resources on the foundational link between stability, resilience and security, and work with governments and civil society in regions that are of greatest priority to the UK. This activity will be supported by funding of £874 million for 2021-22.

Homeland security and transnational security challenges

Transnational security threats such as terrorism, SOC and the proliferation of CBRN and advanced military technology continue to pose a direct threat to the UK’s citizens, interests and values, whether they originate in the UK or overseas. As these threats evolve and increasingly overlap, we will sustain our commitment to homeland security and build on our considerable expertise, linking our national and international efforts.

Countering radicalisation and terrorism

Terrorism remains a major threat to UK citizens and our interests at home and abroad. Although the risks have evolved in recent years, Islamist terrorism continues to pose the primary threat to the UK. There is also a diversifying threat from far-right and, to a lesser extent, far-left, anarchist and single-issue terrorism. In Northern Ireland, the Dissident Republican threat endures and there remains a minority who aim to destabilise the peace process. Paramilitary and criminal activity by both Dissident Republican and Loyalist groups adds to the wider security challenges we face in Northern Ireland.

We will take a robust, full-spectrum approach in response. This will involve addressing the conditions that give rise to terrorism, including through countering the radicalising influence of extremist individuals or groups, as well as maintaining high-end capabilities to disrupt and deter terrorist attacks. Working in the UK and with partners overseas - especially those in the wider European neighbourhood, Africa and the Middle East - our priority actions will be:

• To strengthen the UK’s counter-terrorism (CT) system. Building on the work undertaken since the Anderson Review and Operational Improvement Review, we will: integrate the UK’s CT capabilities in a new Counter Terrorism Operations Centre (see textbox); strengthen the criminal justice system under the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill and the Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Act 2020; and sustain the £70 million uplift in funding for CT policing in England and Wales into 2021-22. Equivalent funds are available to the Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Executive for CT policing.

• To reinforce our approach to countering radicalisation and terrorism in the UK. We will continue to improve the delivery of the PREVENT programme to safeguard people vulnerable to radicalisation, including through an independent review of its effectiveness and a refreshed training package for policy-makers and practitioners in 2021. A new PROTECT duty will make it a legal requirement for owners and operators of public spaces and venues to take measures to keep the public safe from terrorist attacks.
• To reduce the operational capabilities and intent of those involved in Northern Ireland-related terrorism (NIRT). We will work to degrade the wider ecosystem that supports the NIRT threat through a more flexible operational response. Our efforts to deter individuals and groups from engaging in NIRT will include the promotion of alternative pathways. We will also support improvements in offender management to reduce the likelihood of reoffending.
• To address the conditions that give rise to terrorism overseas through our support to open societies and our efforts to tackle conflict and instability. We will also continue to strengthen the CT capabilities of international partners through capacity-building, alongside law enforcement and intelligence cooperation.
• To disrupt the highest-priority terrorist groups overseas using the full range of our CT capabilities. These include our high-end PURSUE capabilities, through targeted military activity, intelligence-sharing and cooperation with international partners. Under persistent engagement, our armed forces will continue to contribute to the Global Coalition against Daesh in Iraq and Syria, provide support to the Government of Afghanistan and support French operations in the Sahel.
• To prevent terrorist activity online. Our objective is to ensure that there are no safe spaces online in which terrorists can promote or share their extreme views. To achieve this, we will continue to challenge terrorists’ presence online, working with technology companies, international partners and civil society organisations, and delivering through the multi-stakeholder Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism and the UK’s law enforcement organisations. Our new online harms regime (see textbox) will further strengthen the response to both illegal and legal but harmful online content in the UK and globally, addressing terrorist material and content relating to child sexual exploitation and abuse in particular.
• To strengthen aviation security worldwide, including through our bilateral programmes with more than 25 countries. Working with the International Civil Aviation Organization, the European Civil Aviation Conference and our Five Eyes partners, we will ensure the effective implementation of global security standards, anticipating evolving threats to aviation.

Serious and organised crime

SOC^{[footnote 2]} directly undermines the safety of UK citizens, the integrity of the state and confidence in our financial system - costing the UK at least £37 billion each year. Organised criminality is linked to much of the crime experienced in communities: it is estimated that 45% of all acquisitive crime is committed by people who regularly use heroin, cocaine or crack cocaine and that nearly 50% of murders are drugs-related. Overseas, SOC is a threat to international security and prosperity: it extends and exacerbates conflicts; undermines allies and partners’ stability; and inflicts the highest economic cost on the lowest-income countries.

Organised crime groups are resilient to disruption, moving across crime types to exploit opportunities in search of criminal profit. The most sophisticated groups use technology such as encrypted communications to remain outside the attention of law enforcement. We must address the visible symptoms, enablers and underlying causes of SOC, disrupting, dismantling and destroying criminal enterprises at home and overseas. The inherently transnational nature of SOC means that our approach must link the local response with the regional, national and international. Our priority actions, in response to the 2020 Mackey Review, will be:

• To bolster our response to the most pressing threats the UK faces from organised criminals, including: economic crime, illicit finance and fraud, with an additional £83 million investment to ensure our economy is a safe place to do business; tackling child sexual abuse through a new cross-government strategy published in January 2021; doubling our investment in tackling county lines and drugs supply; and tackling the most pernicious forms of cybercrime, such as ransomware, including by blocking malicious online activity at scale through Active Cyber Defence. We will also take measures to ensure that the next generation of digital technologies are deployed in a way that safeguards their security.
• To strengthen the National Crime Agency (NCA), meeting our manifesto commitment and developing the critical data, intelligence and investigative capabilities required for the NCA to lead the law enforcement system in England and Wales. We will pursue greater integration where there is an overlap with other threats such as terrorism and state threats. We will ensure that the NCA’s funding mechanism supports the delivery of long-term goals and its ability to adapt to changing threats.
• To increase regional and local policing capacity. We will bolster Regional Organised Crime Units in coordination with local policing and the NCA. This includes our recruitment in 2021-22 of 300 police officers dedicated to SOC, as part of our commitment to recruit a total of 20,000 extra police officers by 2023. We will revise the Strategic Policing Requirement so that it more effectively supports policing’s response to national threats. In 2021-22 we will pilot the improved use of Serious Crime Prevention Orders to prevent crimes before they happen. Our investment of an additional £275 million in the criminal justice system will help to bring more offenders to justice.
• To strengthen international efforts to disrupt and dismantle SOC networks. In doing so, we will build on the work of our diplomatic and operational networks such as the NCA’s liaison officers and work closely with international partners such as the Five Eyes and the EU, including via our liaison officers at Europol. In particular, we will work with like-minded partners to strengthen Interpol’s support to frontline law enforcement, increasing data-sharing and investing in Interpol’s technical capabilities.
• To tackle SOC within the UK’s territorial sea, through: coordinated action between the UK Border Force, law enforcement and the Royal Navy; and implementation of the UK 2025 border strategy (see textbox). Coordinating closely with France in particular, we will continue to work with European partners to manage shared maritime spaces such as the Channel, and the North and Irish Seas.

Diagram with six boxes showing the six main changes that will be made to the UK border as part of the 2025 UK border strategy.

Text: We will increase the effectiveness of the UK’s border with six transformative changes which will promote prosperity and enhance security. Develop a coordinated approach to border design and delivery which enables border innovation Bring together Government’s collection, assurance and use of border data. Establish resilient ‘ports of the future’ at border crossing points. Use upstream compliance to move processes away from the actual frontier where appropriate. Build the capability of staff responsible for delivering border processes. Shape the future development of borders worldwide to facilitate end-to-end trade and travel.

Strengthening global arms control, disarmament and counter-proliferation

Countering proliferation^{[footnote 3]} is integral to the UK’s security and prosperity. It helps to maintain regional and global stability, reduces threats to our citizens and armed forces, facilitates safe trade for our industry and protects high-skilled jobs across the UK. Our successes in the past five years - including the response to Russia’s Salisbury attack and the attribution of chemical weapons use in Syria - have contributed to our global reputation as a force for good and an S&T power.

To protect these gains, we must: address growing threats from states such as Iran, Russia and North Korea; respond to emerging threats such as the illicit acquisition of advanced and dual-use technologies; and reinforce the global counter-proliferation architecture against growing pressures, shaping its future in our interest. Our priority actions will be:

• To reinforce international governance of state access to CBRN weapons, materials or related technology through our work with the relevant treaty bodies – especially the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose nuclear safeguards system we will strengthen. In particular, we will do more to expose non-compliance with governing treaties (see nuclear deterrent section). Alongside our allies, the UK will hold Iran to account for its nuclear activity, remaining open to talks on a more comprehensive nuclear and regional deal. We will also remain the most engaged non-regional partner on North Korea’s denuclearisation and on sanctions enforcement.
• To reduce tensions in South Asia, by encouraging regional dialogue on nuclear responsibilities, and by working with states there to understand and respond to safety and security threats to the region.
• To counter proliferation to states. Using intelligence analysis, we will increase our knowledge of those who seek access to CBRN and advanced military and dual-use technology. We will tackle proliferation networks and proliferation finance by identifying hot spots, routes and mechanisms for their transfer. Improvements to the Academic Technology Approval Scheme will help to stop states from using research relationships with UK academia to steal intellectual property and obtain knowledge that could be used to develop CBRN weapons and their means of delivery, or advanced military technology.
• To counter proliferation to non-state actors, strengthening the security and safety of nuclear materials in priority countries. We will also reduce the risk of terrorist acquisition of biological agents through our International Biological Security Programme and the G7 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.
• To balance the opportunities of new technologies with controls, sustaining our own legitimate investment and supporting other responsible states’ use of new technologies through technical cooperation. Working with experts, industry and allies, the UK will maintain an efficient export control system on weapons and dual-use technology that adapts with technological change. We will also recommend changes to counter-proliferation regimes and international governance that take account of new routes to CBRN and advanced weapons enabled by technology.

Building resilience at home and overseas

COVID-19 is unlikely to be the last global crisis of the 2020s. As the world becomes both more interconnected and contested, incidents in one region – a novel virus, the loss of habitats or a cyber-attack – can have systemic consequences worldwide, which we cannot always predict or avert. This means that as well as strengthening our security, we need to build our resilience across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: addressing the root causes of risks, and increasing the UK’s preparedness to withstand and recover from crises when they occur.

The UK’s resilience is intertwined with global resilience. The transnational nature of many challenges, from climate change and biosecurity loss to biosecurity and energy security crises, means that no single government can address them alone. Yet COVID-19 has shown how quickly international cooperation can falter under stress. It has also highlighted the vulnerabilities that have resulted from the global trend towards optimising governance and processes for efficiency, rather than for resilience.

As the world recovers from the pandemic, we must strengthen global resilience - ensuring that more resilient countries worldwide can come together through stronger international institutions to act on the most pressing shared challenges. Alongside our efforts to respond to a more challenging security environment, greater resilience is essential if we are to ensure an international order in which open societies and economies can flourish.

Our first goal is to build our national resilience, so that we are able to reduce the impact of acute shocks and longer-term challenges on lives and livelihoods in the UK. National resilience is the product of multiple factors, including effective and trusted governance, government capabilities, social cohesion, and individual and business resilience. Achieving this goal therefore requires a national effort, supported by the Government’s wider domestic agenda. In particular, we will adopt a new approach to preparedness and response to risks, which fully recognises that natural hazards and other risks can cause as much disruption to the UK’s core interests as security threats.

Our second goal is to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss, which require immediate and concerted action worldwide. This will be the UK’s foremost international priority, building on our domestic commitment to reach net zero by 2050. We will work to accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon global economy, protect and restore biodiversity, and support adaptation and resilience - particularly for the most vulnerable worldwide.

Our third goal is to build health resilience at home and at the international level, recognising the interconnected nature of our global health system. In particular, we will bolster our efforts to improve pandemic preparedness - taking a One Health approach - and to reform the WHO, applying the lessons of COVID-19.

Building the UK’s national resilience

Resilience has long been part of the UK’s approach to national security. But in an increasingly interconnected world, in which we cannot predict or stop all of the challenges ahead, we need to renew our approach - making resilience a national endeavour, so that as a country we are prepared for the next crisis, whatever it might be.

The Government will continue to prepare for and respond to individual risks, whether terrorism, flooding or a new pandemic. Learning the lessons of COVID-19, we will also seek to build a better understanding of the UK’s strengths and weaknesses, and improve our national preparedness and readiness across the whole risk lifecycle, from anticipation to recovery. To do so, the Government will start developing a comprehensive national resilience strategy in 2021, in partnership with the devolved administrations and English regions, local government, the private sector and the public. Under this strategy, our priority actions will be:

• To establish a ‘whole-of-society’ approach to resilience, so that individuals, businesses and organisations all play a part in building resilience across the UK. We will seek to develop an integrated approach, bringing together all levels of government, CNI operators, the wider private sector, civil society and the public. As part of this, we will: improve government communications to the public on preparedness; consider strengthening the role and responsibilities of local resilience forums (LRFs) in England; and consider the scope and responsibilities of CNI owners and operators to ensure a consistent resilience standard across CNI sectors. This is in addition to any necessary sector-specific legislation, such as the Telecommunications (Security) Bill. The new cyber strategy will contribute to this overall approach, increasing the UK’s resilience to cyber risks. This will include raising the level of cyber security across CNI sectors and increasing the adoption of the NCSC’s Cyber Assessment Framework.
• To consider threats and hazards in the round, so that we can build national resilience across the diverse range of risks facing the UK: malicious and non-malicious, direct and indirect, and acute and chronic - including low-probability, catastrophic-impact events. This means integrating national security with economic, health and environmental policy, and taking an approach that covers the full lifecycle of risk: anticipation, prevention, preparation, response and recovery. As part of this, we will more closely link our domestic and international action, putting more emphasis on acting upstream to tackle risks at source - from climate action to cyber capacity-building and efforts to disrupt transnational organised crime groups.
• To develop more capabilities - people, skills and equipment - that can be used across a range of scenarios. We will improve our ability to test and develop our capabilities through contingency planning and regular exercises, bringing together government, the emergency services, the armed forces, other local responders and industry. The armed forces will also continue to provide support to emergency responses - such as COVID-19 - through Military Aid to the Civil Authorities (MACA), and we plan on making greater use of the military reserves in supporting domestic national security priorities. We will also consider how to extend this to a civilian reservist cadre for support in times of crisis.
• To review our approach to risk assessment. The National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) is a classified document which lists and assesses the impact and likelihood of the most serious risks facing the UK and its interests overseas. It is produced in conjunction with all risk-owning departments and agencies and its findings were reviewed in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The publicly available version of the NSRA, the National Risk Register, was published in December 2020. A review of the NSRA methodology is currently underway, which will address all aspects of the underlying methodology, including how we account for interdependencies, cascading and compound risks.
• To strengthen our analytical, policy and operational tools - including the collection and use of data - to better assess cross-cutting, complex risks. We will establish a new Situation Centre to provide live data and rapid analysis, supporting collaboration across government and informing crisis decision-making. We will also invest in the digital transformation of the security and intelligence agencies and in ‘all source’ assessment that brings this intelligence together with open-source information.

Tackling climate change and biodiversity loss

The window of opportunity the world has to tackle the climate and biodiversity crisis is shrinking. Urgent action is needed to limit global warming to 1.5°C and to end species decline and environmental destruction. Without it, nature loss could result in a cumulative economic cost of up to $10 trillion between 2011 and 2050. In particular, we must accelerate the global transition to net zero, laying the foundations for future growth and creating new, sustainable employment in the industries of the future. We must also increase our collective resilience to the damage that has already been done, in particular supporting the most vulnerable worldwide in adapting to climate effects and nature loss.

The UK is already at the forefront of climate action. Since 2000, we have reduced emissions more quickly than any other country in the G20, and were the first major economy to adopt a legal obligation to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The UK invested £5.8 billion in International Climate Finance (ICF) between April 2016 and March 2021. In November 2021 we will host COP26 in Glasgow, bringing together the 197 parties which have signed or acceded to the Paris Agreement to agree further action on climate mitigation, adaptation and finance.

Tackling climate change and biodiversity loss will be the UK’s international priority through COP26 and beyond. Our priority actions will be:

• To accelerate the UK’s transition to net zero by 2050, working with the devolved administrations and drawing on strengths and expertise across the UK, such as green hydrogen and wind power in Wales. We will take an ambitious approach, including through the ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution, a forthcoming series of sector strategies (such as the transport decarbonisation plan) and our overarching net zero strategy. Our aim is to become the world’s leading centre for green technology, finance and wind energy, mobilising £12 billion of government investment and much more private investment to create and support up to 250,000 jobs across the UK. We will increase support for net zero innovation and new industries, including in low-carbon hydrogen production and carbon capture and storage. Through the proposed North Sea Transition Deal, we will support the UK’s oil and gas hubs to diversify into new energies, protecting and creating new jobs in areas such as the north east of England and Scotland. We will issue the UK’s first Sovereign Green Bond in 2021 and become the first G20 country to make disclosures specified by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures fully mandatory across the economy by 2025, with most requirements introduced by 2023.
• To accelerate the global transition to net zero, ensuring that everyone can share the opportunities of clean growth sooner. The shift to a green global economy requires action from everyone - from the largest and most advanced economies to developing countries and small island developing states, across governments, businesses and individual citizens. As COP26 president, the UK will seek to reach a positive negotiated outcome which balances the interests of all the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, with more ambitious nationally-determined contributions and long-term decarbonisation strategies. We have also committed to align all of our ODA with the Paris Agreement, and we will consult on ending new direct financial or promotional support for the fossil fuel energy sector overseas.
• To strengthen adaptation to the effects of climate change that cannot be prevented or reversed, supporting the most vulnerable worldwide in particular. We will seek ambitious commitments on finance for adaptation and resilience at COP26. The UK has already committed £11.6 billion to ICF between 2021 and 2025 and doubled our contribution to the Green Climate Fund, to £1.44 billion. At home, the Second National Adaptation Programme (2018) sets out a five-year strategy to make the UK more resilient to climate change, including action on the most pressing risks such as flooding. We will also seek nature-based solutions, such as the £80 million Green Recovery Challenge - which funds projects that restore nature - and the £640 million Nature for Climate Fund for tree-planting and peat restoration.
• To reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, delivering the goals set by the Paris Agreement, the commitments of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the 2020 Leaders’ Pledge for Nature. We will protect and restore nature, including by driving support for ambitious new global targets for nature at the UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP15) in Kunming in 2021, to improve ecosystem resilience and species recovery, and to tackle the causes of nature loss. We will continue to campaign for global agreement to protect at least 30% of the world’s land and ocean globally by 2030, through our Global Ocean Alliance and as co-chair, with Costa Rica and France, of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People and lead the Global Ocean Alliance. The UK will lead by example, protecting 30% of our own land and sea by 2030.
• To drive sustainable and legal use of natural resources. The UK will promote agriculture that regenerates ecosystems and provides healthier and more sustainable food. We will convene the Forest, Agriculture and Commodity Trade Dialogue, bringing together the world’s largest producer and consumer countries of forest-risk commodities to agree collaborative actions that will protect forests whilst promoting trade and development. At home, we will introduce a new law to prevent trade of products in the UK that contribute to illegal deforestation. We will also continue working to end the market for illegal wildlife products, strengthening law enforcement efforts and supporting sustainable alternative livelihoods.
• To invest in nature and a ‘nature positive’ economy, integrating biodiversity into economic decision-making in response to the findings of the Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity. We will increase finance for nature and for nature-based solutions to climate change, including by spending at least £3 billion of our ICF on nature over the next five years, and supporting the protection and restoration of critical habitats, including through our Biodiverse Landscapes Fund and Blue Planet Fund.

Circle diagram with ten bullet points around the edge.

Text:

Offshore wind: producing 40GW - enough offshore wind to power every home in the UK

Low-carbon hydrogen: aiming for 5GW of production by 2030 and pioneering hydrogen heating trials

Delivering new and advanced nuclear power: investing in the next generation of nuclear technology (large and smaller-scale plants and advanced modular reactors)

Zero-emission vehicles: ending the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, while backing our automotive sector, supported by £2.8bn

Green public transport, cycling and walking: investing £5bn in zero-emission public transport

Jet zero and green ships: researching projects for zero-emission planes, ships and sustainable aviation fuels

Greener buildings: £1bn to make homes, schools and hospitals greener, warmer and more energy efficient

Carbon capture: £1bn to become a world leader in technology to capture and store harmful emissions

Nature: protecting and restoring our natural environment, including £5.2bn for flood defences

Innovation and finance: developing cutting-edge low-carbon technologies and a new sovereign green bond

Building health resilience

Infectious disease outbreaks are likely to become more frequent in the coming years, while antimicrobial resistance (AMR) remains a long-term challenge to human health. As COVID-19 has shown, such health crises can have devastating human, economic and social consequences, testing national responses and the global health system, and straining international cooperation.

We must learn the lessons of COVID-19, bolstering our domestic and international action to address global health risks as part of our wider approach to biosecurity.^{[footnote 4]} In doing so, we will build on our One Health approach, which recognises the close connection between the health of people, animals and the environment. Reflecting the interconnected nature of our global health system, we will sustain our support to health programmes in developing countries. We will also continue our collaboration with partners including the EU and the multilateral development banks on issues such as AMR, AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Our priority actions will be:

• To accelerate equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics (VTDs) worldwide as the fastest route to national and global recovery from the current crisis. Our goal is to have offered the entire UK adult population the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine by the end of July 2021 under our domestic vaccination programme, which also extends to our Overseas Territories. The UK will continue to support developing countries’ access to COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX Advanced Market Commitment, through our contribution of £548 million, continued leadership to close the funding gap and support for rapid approval of vaccines in line with international standards of safety, quality and efficacy. We have committed to share the majority of any future surplus vaccines from our supply with COVAX, while our commitment of £1.65 billion over five years to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, will support immunisation of children in the world’s poorest countries. And to strengthen detection of new COVID-19 variants worldwide, our experts will offer support in genomic sequencing to other countries through the New Variants Assessment Platform.
• To review and reinforce the cross-government approach to biosecurity, as part of our efforts to learn the lessons of the COVID-19 response and to build our national resilience. Our ongoing review of responsibility for biosecurity within government will inform future considerations relating to a revised biosecurity strategy and potential machinery-of-government changes.
• To strengthen the UK’s preparedness for future pandemics, taking a One Health approach. Building on the creation of the Joint Biosecurity Centre and the National Institute for Health Protection in 2020, we will improve surveillance, understanding and communication of emerging domestic and cross-border health threats, including zoonoses.^{[footnote 5]} We will undertake scenario analysis and contingency planning within the UK, including to ensure the resilience of medical supply chains. And we will review our national stockpile of clinical countermeasures and consumables such as personal protective equipment, expanded testing capability and laboratory equipment, ensuring they meet the planning assumptions within the 2020 National Risk Register.
• To reform the global health system, strengthening coherence across the international architecture - including between health and economic institutions - and harnessing the potential of data to improve global surveillance. We will seek reform of the WHO, supported by a 30% increase in UK core funding to £340 million over the next four years. We will support stronger health systems worldwide, with improved capacity to comply with the International Health Regulations. To strengthen the One Health approach worldwide, we will seek to establish a Global One Health Intelligence Hub, providing countries and organisations with a single source of intelligence on human, animal and environmental risks, as well as global networks of zoonotic experts and zoonotic centres of excellence - including a centre in the UK. We will also strengthen domestic and international efforts to combat the threat posed by increasing AMR.
• To strengthen global pandemic preparedness, building on the Prime Minister’s five-point plan to prevent future pandemics. The UK will seek to accelerate the development and deployment of VTDs for emerging diseases, using our G7 presidency to cut the development and deployment of vaccines for priority pathogens to 100 days through partnership between governments, industry and international organisations. We will also seek to increase and improve R&D for VTDs, including through: genomic sequencing and assessing zoonotic links; increasing innovation in storage and deployment; and standardising clinical trials and harnessing data. We will ensure sustainable financing for pandemic preparedness and response, and explore a WHO-led pandemic preparedness treaty, to improve international coordination and collaboration.

Implementing the Integrated Review

The Integrated Review has established new and demanding ambitions for the UK’s national security and international policy in an increasingly complex, contested and interconnected global context. Success will depend on more integrated, adaptive and innovative structures and capabilities, reaching beyond central government where necessary.

‘Integration’ is not a new theme in the UK’s approach to national security, although the language used to describe it has varied over time. Systems and capabilities have been increasingly integrated across as well as within departments, most visibly through joint units, joint funding mechanisms and cross-Whitehall governance mechanisms, with the National Security Council (NSC) at the apex. The establishment of the FCDO in 2020 signalled the Government’s intent to ensure deeper integration of the UK’s international capabilities and delivery, and recognised that fundamental organisational structures still matter. This chapter sets out the main priorities for enabling integrated strategy-making and delivery across government and beyond, ensuring the successful implementation of the Integrated Review’s ambitions.

Strengthening strategy and implementation

The NSC will remain the key formal mechanism through which ministers collectively set national security strategy and policy, and oversee implementation. The 2018 National Security Capability Review reformed the structures that support the NSC and introduced new cross-Whitehall mechanisms for providing advice and supporting implementation of its priorities. These reforms have been effective in some areas, bringing greater coherence and structure to advice on complex strategic issues, and better supporting coordinated delivery. Overall, however, more flexibility and agility is needed in the way in which departments tackle cross-cutting challenges, with clearer accountability for delivery under stronger ministerial oversight. Ministers should be engaged collectively at earlier stages in policy-making and more emphasis needs to be placed on effective implementation, including in reporting to and review by the NSC.

The National Security Adviser will therefore review national security systems and processes to ensure that Integrated Review objectives and priority actions, as well as future policy decisions, are implemented swiftly and effectively, and to establish systems that better support the NSC.

Reform priorities

Strategy capability: stronger collective strategy capability is fundamental to successful, integrated implementation. During the Integrated Review process, we have developed or employed a number of tools and techniques for strategic analysis, assessment and challenge, as well as better links with a range of external bodies to support policy development. Some of this capability will be developed further for ongoing support to strategy implementation and development. This includes:

• Better technological skills and capability within strategy functions.
• Strategic communications and public engagement capability.
• Enhanced access to evidence, including the use of futures, foresight techniques, data and challenge.

The new Net Assessment function within the MOD is an example of the type of capability we will create to support cross-government strategy-making.

Digital and data: a continuing focus on interoperability through architectures, standards and development methods will be required so that teams across government can work effectively together across all levels of security. This will need to be underpinned by investment in next-generation secure digital, data and technology platforms, skills and a strong focus on improving knowledge and information management practices. We will focus on the responsible use of new data platforms, digital tools and participative processes to support policy-making and improve inclusivity and transparency. Our new Central Digital and Data Office will be an important catalyst for further change.

Culture, diversity and inclusion: achieving a culture that supports integration, adaptation and innovation is critical. The national security community was one of the first parts of the Government to trial a new Civil Service-wide approach to culture change. Recognising that diversity and inclusivity are operational imperatives, we have driven initiatives such as a ‘Mission Critical’ toolkit for staff and shadow boards. In doing so, we have built on lessons from reports including the Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction (Butler), the Report of the Iraq Inquiry (Chilcot) and Windrush Lessons Learned (Williams). We have also tested innovations in reverse mentoring, targeted recruitment and development, national security vetting transformation, workplace adjustments and digital outreach.

However, there is much more to do to harness the diverse perspectives and experience that drive innovation and adaptation and to maintain the collaborative, agile and inclusive behaviours needed to enable integration. We will learn from arrangements made during the COVID-19 pandemic which demonstrated the potential to work more flexibly and inclusively. We will need to:

• Become better connected to, and fully representative of, the people we serve. Despite some progress, the national security and international policy community has much further to travel.
• Foster a culture that encourages more and different kinds of challenge, further developing capabilities such as red-teaming to mitigate the cognitive biases that affect decision-making.
• Develop a strategic approach to recruitment and development to increase the flow and diversity of people into, and out of, the community so that we have a robust pipeline of diverse future talent.
• Target roles for external recruitment where such experience would be beneficial, and locate a wider range of roles across all the regions of the UK.

Professionalisation, training and skills: delivering the Integrated Review will depend on the availability of people with the right skills, experience and security clearances to form flexible, diverse and multidisciplinary teams. Regular experience of joint working, greater efforts in recent years to develop relevant professional courses, and the development of clustered security vetting services are helping to build these capabilities. However, faster progress is needed. In preparation for the next SR, we will review the case for a dedicated College for National Security as part of the Government’s new Curriculum and Campus for Government Skills. This could upgrade our workforce and the tools available to it, driving culture change, providing a platform for international collaboration and establishing S&T as a core skill. We will also further use military reservists to support the full range of national security priorities and explore options for a wider civilian reserve.

Implementation

The Government has launched a new Performance and Planning Framework and is establishing an Evaluation Taskforce. The Framework sets out priority outcomes, including four which will cover the Integrated Review’s major themes and which are intended to be supported by multiple departments. Government departments will develop Outcome Delivery Plans, against which ministers will receive regular performance reports. This will provide the ability to monitor implementation (projects, programmes and outputs) and measure impact (outcomes and benefits), as well as complementing other monitoring mechanisms for tracking delivery, such as the Government Major Projects Portfolio.

A Defence Command Paper will be published alongside the Integrated Review, setting out plans for defence in more detail. We intend to publish further strategies, including on resilience, cyber and international development, in due course. Future SRs will provide further opportunities to align spending plans with the priorities set by the Integrated Review.

Annex A: Integrated Review priorities funded in Spending Review 2020

The Integrated Review sets out the Prime Minister’s vision for a UK that is stronger at home and in the world, ensuring that we can match our ambitions for Global Britain. That vision is reflected in spending decisions in SR 2020, including departmental settlements and funding for new initiatives. SR 2020 has set us on the path to achieve our outcomes with funding provided to priority areas of resilience, security, climate change, domestic R&D, clean technology and to maintaining our cutting-edge military and world-class diplomatic network. The Strategic Framework will guide future SRs, which will offer further opportunities to align resources with ambition over the longer term.

This section sets out the specific measures within SR 2020 that support the delivery of the Strategic Framework. We have divided the information below into chapter categories but most of the capabilities described are cross-cutting and will be used in support of activity described in more than one chapter.

 

SR 2020 Commitment		Description
Strategic advantage through science and technology
Clean energy technologies (BEIS)		£1bn into Carbon Capture and Storage and support to the low-carbon hydrogen production industry with a new £240m Net Zero Hydrogen Fund and £81m for pioneering hydrogen heating trials.
R&D (BEIS)		Nearly £15bn funding including: Commitment to raising economy-wide investment in R&D to 2.4% of GDP by 2027. A multi-year settlement for the National Academies and UK Research and Innovation’s core research budgets, which will grow by more than £400m on average per year for the next three years. By 2023-24 the Government will be investing £1.4bn more per year in core funding for its world-leading research base. Up to £17m in 2021-22 to establish a new unit and fund that will focus on the last mile of innovation to help ensure that public-sector knowledge assets (R&D, intellectual property, and other intangible assets) translate into new high-tech jobs, businesses and economic growth. Innovate UK’s grant programmes and the Catapult Network provide critical support for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises and £490m has been provided for Innovate UK’s core budgets next year. This will support high-tech firms across the UK in developing the technologies of the future.
Defence R&D		Investment of at least £6.6bn in R&D, enabling research into AI and other battle-winning technologies as part of the MOD’s four-year settlement (see below).
UK security and intelligence agencies  R&D		£695m of additional R&D funding between 2021-22 to 2024-25. To support the development of cutting-edge capabilities in the agencies.
National Cyber Force (MOD)		The MOD settlement includes funding for the NCF in partnership with the security and intelligence agencies to enhance the UK’s position as a responsible, democratic cyber power.
Cyber security (NCSP)		£305m of continued investment in 2021-22 in the cross-government National Cyber Security Programme (NCSP), funding transformational cyber security projects to support departments, the private sector and wider society. This investment will enable the UK to stay at the forefront of global action to secure a safe digital future and successfully adopt new technology to drive resilience and economic growth. There is a further £18m in 2021-22 for international cyber, digital and data capacity-building programmes, and projects from the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund.
Digital & data (DCMS)		£45m for programmes to drive growth through digital technologies and data, while improving online safety and security.
2. Shaping the open international order of the future
Diplomatic network (FCDO)		Investment in FCDO priority estates projects to deliver a safe, modern platform for our overseas network.
Trade (DIT)		Continued implementation of the UK’s new independent trade policy – including ongoing trade negotiations with the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and the UK’s accession to the CPTPP – with the aim of enabling 80% of UK trade to be covered by trade agreements by the end of 2022.
Soft power (FCDO/DCMS/DfE)		Continued support for the British Council (£150m of ODA and £39m non-ODA grant funding from FCDO for 2021-22, and further financial support to allow the Council to reform and invest). Over £284m for galleries and museums. Over £150m to continue to strengthen our cultural and heritage infrastructure, including through the Cultural Investment Fund and Museums Infrastructure Fund. More than £100m in capital investment for DCMS-supported bodies working across culture, heritage and sports. £72m in 2021-22 to support the commitment to build 20 Institutes of Technology. Over £42m for VisitBritain to promote the UK to visitors from around the world, promoting familiarity with UK values.
Economic crime (HO)		£63m to tackle economic crime, including the reform of the Suspicious Activity Reports system, and to grow the NECC, which coordinates law enforcement’s response to money laundering. £20m to support the reform of the Companies House register.
3. Strengthening security and defence at home and overseas
Defence (MOD)		Over £24bn increase in cash terms over four years, including at least £6.6bn of R&D (as mentioned above) to maintain a cutting-edge military. This reaffirms the UK’s commitment to its allies, making the UK the largest European spender on defence in NATO and the second largest in the Alliance. The additional funding in this settlement will: Enable research into AI and other battle-winning technologies. Reshape the UK’s armed forces for a more competitive age. Establish a new Space Command and enhance the breadth of our space capabilities. Continue the renewal of the UK’s nuclear deterrent. Develop the next generation of naval vessels, including Type 32 frigates and Fleet Solid Support ships, and deliver our plans for eight Type 26 and five Type 31 frigates. Progress our Carrier Strike capabilities, with at least 48 F-35s by 2025. Develop the Future Combat Air system for the RAF, along with delivering upgraded Typhoon radars. Enhance the UK’s position as a responsible, democratic cyber power (as mentioned above).
CBRN - nuclear detection capability (HO)		£22m resource funding in 2021-22 and £329m capital funding from 2021-22 to 2024-25 to enhance nuclear detection capability.
Conflict, Stability and Security Fund		£874m to support the UK’s national security and resilience through overseas engagement. This is focused on tackling instability, preventing conflict and supporting capacity-building.
Borders (HO/CO)		£217m for HO to deliver the Future Border and Immigration System, a new points-based immigration system in line with the Government’s ambition to have the most effective border in the world by 2025. A further £1bn for HMRC to reform and enhance the UK customs system will be accompanied by £363m to recruit 1,100 Border Force officers to deliver transit customs arrangements and to continue supporting law enforcement cooperation with EU member states from 1 January 2021. Seed funding of £16m for the CO for the Border and Protocol Delivery Group for transformative work at the border which will support development of a Single Trade Window.
Counter Terrorism (HO/UK security and intelligence agencies)		The budget for CT policing in England and Wales is maintained, including the extra £70m provided in the last financial year, for 2021-22. Establishing CTOC to transform our ability to fight terrorism by creating a single integrated CT centre.
Serious and Organised Crime (HO)		Maintains existing funding for tackling SOC and continues the additional £30m provided at SR 2019 to tackle child sexual exploitation.
UK security and intelligence agencies		£695m on additional R&D funding between 2021-22 and 2024-25 to support the development of cutting-edge capabilities in the agencies.
Telecommunications Diversification (DCMS)		In order to make early progress on telecommunications diversification and to build momentum to deliver our long-term vision, the Government has committed an initial investment of £250m, to initiate work on our key priorities.
4. Building resilience at home and overseas
Situation Centre and Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (CO)		£9.3m to provide continued support to the COBR crisis suite and establish a Situation Centre which will provide live data, analysis and insights to decision-makers on what is happening in the UK and around the world, strengthening our ability to identify, understand and respond to national security issues and crises.
Climate change and biodiversity		£12bn investment to support a green industrial revolution including innovative clean energy technologies, low hydrogen carbon production, carbon capture and storage, offshore wind and nuclear power. Provides funding for the Prime Minister’s ten-point plan, which has set out the Government’s vision to tackle climate change while simultaneously supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs across the UK. The Prime Minister committed in 2019 to double the UK’s public ICF to at least £11.6bn between 2021 and 2025. ICF will help developing countries limit their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. £5.2bn in the next six-year flood and coastal defence programme, and £200m on innovative resilience measures over the same period. This is to better protect homes and communities across England from flooding and to ensure they are better prepared for when it does happen. This accompanies allocations for the Nature for Climate Fund (£92m), Green Recovery Challenge Fund (£80m) and an additional £7m for biodiversity conservation in the Overseas Territories.
Health resilience (DHSC, BEIS, MHCLG, FCDO)		£6bn to develop and procure COVID-19 vaccines, as well as over £5.4bn to help local authorities respond to COVID-19 in 2020-21. £1.3bn to DHSC for R&D to continue the world-leading work of the National Institute for Health Research and Genomics England and their research into better patient outcomes, including on COVID-19 research, as well as supporting the wider UK life sciences sector. £548m available through the COVAX Advance Market Commitment to support developing countries’ access to COVID-19 vaccines. Support to the WHO through a core contribution of £340m over four years. This represents a 30% increase to existing funding, which cements the UK’s place as the second-largest member state contributor. Support to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, with £1.65bn over five years to support immunisation of children in the world’s poorest countries. This helps to ensure that COVID-19 does not undermine global efforts to protect against preventable diseases.
Official Development Assistance (ODA)		£10bn ODA in 2021-22 to be used overseas to fight poverty, tackle climate change, support girls into education and improve global health. The UK will spend the equivalent of 0.5% of gross national income (GNI) as overseas aid in 2021.
Implementing the Integrated Review
ROSA (CO)		£2.2m to improve security, to protect our sensitive data from ever-evolving threats by investing in the ROSA system.

 

Annex B: Evidence and engagement

This annex sets out our approach to building the evidence base for the Integrated Review. The ambition was to root the review in the best available evidence, analysis and expertise, drawing on a diverse range of high-quality sources to create a foreign policy baseline; taking key partners’ and stakeholders’ views into consideration; and embedding evidence and rigour throughout the strategy development process.

To achieve this ambition, we undertook a systematic programme of engagement, analysis and challenge. We established new processes and products where these were needed to address gaps and better inform decision-making. Lessons learned during the process will inform our future approach to engagement and our use of evidence.

Approach

This programme was designed to support each stage of the strategy development and drafting process. This involved working with government departments and agencies, the UK’s overseas networks, and experts, practitioners and partners from across the globe. In particular, we sought to:

• Identify and understand the established and emergent trends in the domestic and international system.
• Highlight what the UK could and should learn from other countries and from the private sector.
• Clarify the strengths and weaknesses of the UK’s current policies, processes, systems and capabilities, and identify what needed to change.

New mechanisms were established to integrate efforts across government so that the Review benefited from the full range of expertise and resources available, including extensive domestic and overseas networks and research and assessment capabilities. Three programmes of activity were developed: engagement; analysis and assessment; and challenge and assurance.

Engagement

We designed engagement to bring in different perspectives and policy ideas from across the UK and around the world. We adapted the programme in light of COVID-19 to make full use of online platforms and we issued a public call for evidence.

International partners and stakeholders: the Cabinet Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and later the FCDO, designed and delivered a virtual international engagement programme to which heads of mission, ministers and senior officials contributed. In particular, senior officials - including the Deputy National Security Adviser for the Integrated Review and the Prime Minister’s Special Adviser on Foreign Policy - held more than 100 engagements with over 20 countries across six continents, with a particular focus on key allies and partners. With support from Wilton Park, we convened 22 young leaders and emerging experts from 14 different countries to better understand young people’s perspectives on, and ambitions for, the future.

Departmental engagement: government departments and agencies consulted networks and stakeholder groups across the UK and the world to inform inputs to the Integrated Review, although this process was necessarily restricted due to COVID-19. For example, the FCDO established a group of experts and hosted roundtables on key themes and GO-Science consulted established networks such as the UK Science and Innovation Network (SIN) to coordinate a range of inputs from external experts. Chief Scientific Advisers across government also played an important role in improving the standards of evidence use throughout the Integrated Review. This included support from the FCDO Research and Evidence Division (RED) to review the Integrated Review evidence base.

Public engagement: gaining perspectives from the public was vital to informing the Integrated Review, although the process was necessarily restricted due to COVID-19. New research was conducted to understand public perceptions of foreign policy and national security at home and overseas. On 13 August 2020, we launched a public call for evidence. Contributions were invited on a range of security, defence, development and foreign policy questions. We received more than 450 submissions from individuals and organisations. Organisational respondents included representatives of a range of industries, non-governmental organisations, international organisations, academia, think tanks, local government, LRFs, the media, religious organisations and fire and police organisations. We reviewed and catalogued the submissions, which we then shared with policy-makers and senior officials across government.

Parliamentary engagement: we made extensive use of reports by the relevant parliamentary committees. During the Integrated Review process, officials briefed the House of Commons Select Committees on Defence, Foreign Affairs and International Development. The Prime Minister gave evidence to the Liaison Committee on the Integrated Review. The Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary also gave evidence to the relevant departmental select committees, the then-National Security Adviser gave evidence to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, and Defence Minister (Lords) led briefing sessions for members of the House of Lords.

Experts and practitioners: with support from the Government’s Open Innovation Team and Wilton Park, we engaged academics and experts from more than 30 different institutions and 20 countries. This included five facilitated discussion sessions and three roundtables with senior officials. Senior officials conducted a virtual tour of established think tanks and new research bodies. During the Integrated Review, we closely tracked work in relevant journals, think tanks and other research bodies from across the world. This work included two focused reviews of expert opinion, involving input from 45 academics and practitioners, to gather perspectives on the UK’s role in the world over the next ten years, UK capabilities in relevant areas, and the extent to which current systems support their effective use.

Analysis and assessment

We commissioned new analyses and assessments to address gaps, updated existing analyses, and developed new analytical products to inform decision-making and strategy development.

Global strategic outlook: the assessment community coordinated a cross-government analysis of global trends up to 2030. This analysis drew on a range of expertise, including horizon-scanning and futures analysis work by the MOD’s Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre, GO-Science and the FCDO. It outlined the most significant global trends, drivers and changes, and their implications for national security and foreign policy over the coming decade.

Capabilities and systems: we sought to develop a detailed understanding of UK capabilities and systems to inform strategy and resourcing decisions. We carried out a cross-government assessment to provide an overview of government spending. We also compared the UK’s capabilities with those of key partners and undertook analysis of the culture of the national security community.

Risk assessment: the NSRA is a classified document that lists and assesses the impact and likelihood of the most serious risks facing the UK and its interests overseas. It is produced collaboratively with all departments and agencies and its findings were reviewed in light of COVID-19. The publicly available version of the NSRA, the National Risk Register, was published in December 2020.

Products to support decision-making and strategy development: we sought to improve the accessibility of the evidence base, synthesising inputs where appropriate. This included regular sharing of insights from the evidence base.

Challenge and assurance

We put in place challenge and assurance processes to test our assumptions and emerging thinking during the strategy development process. These drew from a range of tools and methods, which included:

• Research into mitigating cognitive biases in national security and international policy. The Open Innovation Team looked at a range of ‘alternative analysis’ approaches, audited existing initiatives and interviewed ten officials and 17 external experts including academics.
• Red-teaming to challenge and test emerging thinking from the perspective of third parties including, but not limited to, allies and adversaries.
• Reading groups of senior officials with specific subject matter expertise from across government departments and agencies to contribute to and provide feedback on the emerging Strategic Framework.
• Challenge groups to discuss the key assumptions and judgements of the Integrated Review, with participants from across government and our overseas network.
• Quality assurance at each phase of the Integrated Review process to assess the use of evidence against a framework, check figures and provide feedback on whether the Integrated Review presented a clear theory of change.

Future priorities

The Integrated Review’s programme of engagement, analysis and assessment has reinforced the need to improve the use of evidence across government. We are committed to improving the use of evidence, analysis and challenge, including from diverse sources, in developing and delivering national security and international strategy.

Annex C: Glossary

Term - definition

AI - Artificial intelligence

AMR - Antimicrobial resistance

ASEAN - Association of Southeast Asian Nations

BEIS - Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy

CBRN - Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear

CJEF - Combined Joint Expeditionary Force

CO - Cabinet Office

COBR - Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms

COP26 - 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties

COVAX - COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access

CPTPP - Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

CNI - Critical national infrastructure

CT - Counter-terrorism

CTOC - Counter Terrorism Operations Centre

DCMS - Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport

DHSC - Department of Health and Social Care

Dstl - Defence Science and Technology Laboratory

EU - European Union

FCAS - Future combat air system

FCDO - Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office

FDI - Foreign direct investment

FoRB - Freedom of religion or belief

FPDA - Five Power Defence Arrangements

FTA - Free trade agreement

GCHQ - Government Communications Headquarters

GDP - Gross domestic product

GNI - Gross national income

HO - Home Office

IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency

ICF - International Climate Finance

ISU - Investment Security Unit

LRF - Local resilience forum

MHCLG - Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government

MOD - Ministry of Defence

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NCA - National Crime Agency

NCF - National Cyber Force

NCSC - National Cyber Security Centre

NCSP - National Cyber Security Programme

NECC - National Economic Crime Centre

NSC - National Security Council

NSRA - National Security Risk Assessment

ODA - Official Development Assistance

OECD - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

OPCW - Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

OSCE - Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

RAF - Royal Air Force

R&D - Research and development

SDGs - Sustainable Development Goals

SIS - Secret Intelligence Service - also known as MI6

SOC - Serious and organised crime

SR - Spending Review

S&T - Science and technology

UN - United Nations

UNHCR - UN Refugee Agency

VTD - Vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics

WHO - World Health Organization

WTO - World Trade Organization

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Written by The UK Government

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The original publication can be found @GOV.UK