PM urged to show leadership on national security

The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy has told the Prime Minister that it is ‘profoundly concerned about what appears to be a more relaxed approach to national security under this government’.

Dame Margaret Beckett, chair of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, has written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to express concern over a significant reduction in his personal engagement with the work of the National Security Council and in the collective discussion of national security by other senior ministers.

The letter also highlighted shock at the ‘apparent complacency and lack of urgency within government in the wake of the disastrous experience’ for the UK and its allies in Afghanistan, as well as expressed concern about the relegation of national security as a spending priority.

In the letter, Dame Beckett has urged the Prime Minister to: increase the frequency of his attendance at the NSC, chairing it at least once per fortnight; designate a standing chair of the National Security Ministers group, to improve the consistency of national security decision-making and implementation; and engage personally with the forthcoming National Resilience Strategy, as an opportunity to establish robust crisis-planning and risk management practices.