Written questions by Obese-Jecty.

With reference to page 39 of the National Security Strategy 2025, published in June 2025, CP 1338, what measures are contained within each pillar of the Strategic Framework in order to bolster overall security with respect to China.

The three pillars of the National Security Strategy 2025 set out comprehensive measures on how we will bolster the UK's overall security. Our approach to China, as a country that poses both a series of threats to UK national security and significant economic opportunities, necessarily cuts across all three pillars. From pillar one's focus on measures to bolster our security at home, to pillar two's emphasis on direct and high level engagement with China in support of UK interests to pillar three's focus on our international competitiveness and reducing our dependence on others.

With reference to page 27 of the National Security Strategy 2025, CP 1338, published on 24 June 2025, what recent progress he has made on establishing a new network of national biosecurity centres.

The Network of Biosecurity Centres will strengthen and formalise the strong existing collaborations between the UK Health Security Agency, the Animal and Plant Health Agency and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. It will ensure we are better prepared for a crisis, can respond more effectively when an incident does happen, and deliver a more holistic, One Health and National Security approach to biological research.The Network will support the Centres’ development and operation, with investment in the laboratory facilities of more than £1bn over the next four years to ensure we have the capabilities we need. Initial steps will include agreeing collaboration priorities, such as operation standards and skills development.The Cabinet Office oversees implementation of the UK Biological Security Strategy. That includes ensuring we have the capabilities across government to protect the public from a spectrum of biological risks, no matter how they occur and no matter who or what they affect. Funding to tackle specific biological risks is based on the UK ‘Lead Government Department (LGD)’ model. Designated LGDs are responsible for leading work to identify serious risks, and ensuring that the right planning, response and recovery arrangements are in place - including the prioritisation of departmental spending to ensure the right capabilities are in place to mitigate risks, within allocated budgets. The UK Biological Security Strategy is clear that a thriving life sciences sector is key to our biological security. The government has committed £380 million to engineering biology and £2bn to life sciences over the spending review period. At the publication of the UK Biological Security Strategy in June 2023, we committed to update Parliament annually on the progress made to implement the Strategy. The government published its first UK Biosecurity Strategy Implementation report in July 2025, which sets out the range of short term commitments delivered. The report is available here.

With reference to page 87 of the Strategic Defence Review 2025, published on 8 July 2025, what progress he has made on establishing the Home Defence Programme.

The Home Defence Programme was established in August 2024 to build the UK’s resilience to any potential escalation to conflict. It is an evolving and enduring programme of work which provides defence, security and resilience planning, focused on aligning military and civil effort in the event of a period of crisis and international hostilities affecting the UK, informed by and reflecting the recommendations from government strategies, including the Strategic Defence Review, National Security Strategy and Resilience Action Plan.

What recent progress he has made on implementing the Falcon programme.

The Falcon Programme is facilitating the Cabinet Office's transition from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365. Falcon has completed the design and build of the platform working with Microsoft and the Integrated Corporate Services, and is now progressing into the delivery phase. Full migration of the Cabinet Office and its Arms Length Bodies is anticipated in 2026. This is part of the drive to improve the productivity, security and efficiency of systems in the Cabinet Office and across Whitehall.

With reference to page 27 of the National Security Strategy 2025, CP 1338, published on 24 June 2025, what recent progress he has made on establishing national resilience goals.

The Government published the Resilience Action Plan on 8 July 2025 to set out its resilience strategy. It set out three core objectives to improve the UK’s resilience to the full range of risks: (1) continually assess how resilient the UK is in order to target interventions and resources; (2) enable the whole of society to take action to increase their resilience; and (3) strengthen the core public sector resilience system. These goals inform a series of activities to deliver greater resilience across the whole of society, as set out in the Resilience Action Plan.

With reference to page 27 of the National Security Strategy 2025, CP 1338, published on 24 June 2025, what progress he has made on issuing public communications on preparedness for risks.

The Government’s Resilience Action Plan has committed to do more to provide households with preparedness information. In September, the Prepare website was included in the message sent out to UK mobile phones as part of the Government’s test of the Emergency Alerts system. Mobile Network Operators have confirmed that the test of the Emergency Alert capability on 7th September reached 96% coverage in the UK. This represents an increase of 6% on the previous test, held in April 2023. We continue to work with our local and national partners, including organisations from the voluntary, community and faith sectors, to highlight the importance of preparing for risks. In wider communications activities, as part of Flood Action Week, running this year from 13th-19th October, the Environment Agency is encouraging people to prepare for flooding by taking proactive steps such as knowing their flood risk, preparing a flood plan, and signing up for flood warnings. The Government is currently considering what further public communications activities might support improvements to public preparedness for emergencies. For example, the Cabinet Office published the first annual UK Public Survey of Risk Perception, Resilience and Preparedness in July 2025, and the results will be used to inform the development of future public preparedness communications and to monitor trends.

With reference to recommendation 32 of the Strategic Defence Review 2025, published on 8 July 2025, which senior Ministers sit on the National Security Council (Nuclear) committee.

Membership of the National Security Council (Nuclear) comprises the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Secretary of State for the Home Department, Secretary of State for Defence, and Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. The membership is published on Gov.uk. It is a long-established precedent that information about the discussions that have taken place in Cabinet and its committees, including how often they have met, is not normally shared publicly.

How many times the National Security Council (Nuclear) Committee has met since 4 July 2024.

Membership of the National Security Council (Nuclear) comprises the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Secretary of State for the Home Department, Secretary of State for Defence, and Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. The membership is published on Gov.uk. It is a long-established precedent that information about the discussions that have taken place in Cabinet and its committees, including how often they have met, is not normally shared publicly.

With reference to the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy, CP 1337, published on 23 June 2025, what progress he has made on the 12-week consultation on updating definitions covering the 17 sensitive areas of the economy subject to mandatory notification under the National Security and Investment Act.

On 22 July 2025, the former Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Rt Hon Pat McFadden MP, published a 12-week consultation on updating the definitions of the 17 sensitive areas of the economy subject to mandatory notification requirements under the National Security and Investment Act 2021 through the Notifiable Acquisition Regulations. The consultation closed on 14 October. The Government is currently considering the feedback received and will publish a consultation response summarising responses and setting out the proposals that will be taken forward, including possible secondary legislation, in due course.

Whether the Falcon programme will provide AI tools for use by his Department.

This Government is committed to harnessing Artificial Intelligence to increase productivity in Whitehall and across the public sector, so that it can better serve the public. As part of this, the Cabinet Office is actively working to include Artificial Intelligence provisions within the Falcon Programme.

Pursuant to the Answer of 3 September 2025 to Question 72570 on National Security: Infrastructure, if he will publish the list of businesses that he provided advice on security and resilience best practice.

As set out in the Resilience Action Plan on 14 July, the Government is actively engaging with the private sector to ensure a whole of society approach to building and strengthening resilience. This takes place via a range of conduits to build on existing relationships and expertise, including through business networks, such as Resilience First and the Confederation of British Industry. Lead Government Departments hold responsibility for sector specific engagement, and the National Technical Authorities (National Cyber Security Centre and National Protective Security Authority) also provide advice to UK industry, including industry classified as Critical National Infrastructure, on security and resilience best practice. There are no plans to publish a list of business engagements, given the different fora that these conversations take place within.

Pursuant to the Answer of 3 September 2025 to Question 72570 on National Security: Infrastructure, what progress he has made on developing a new Cyber Resilience Index.

The government is working tirelessly to improve the cyber resilience of our most critical services and systems, including the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). Improving our understanding of the cyber risk we are carrying as a nation is fundamental to this. In order to build a better understanding of cyber risk, we are developing a new Cyber Resilience Index (CRI) which will build on existing measures of cyber resilience to provide a cross-sector, holistic overview of cyber resilience for UK CNI, allowing us to target resilience building efforts. The Cabinet Office is working closely with the National Cyber Security Centre and CNI Lead Government Departments to progress the CRI. We are keen for this to be a collaborative process so that the Index delivers for all CNI sectors. More widely, the upcoming Cyber Security & Resilience Bill will also address the evolving cyber risk picture for CNI sectors across the UK.

Pursuant to the Answer of 3 September 2025 to Question 73377 on Strategic Defence Review, by when does he expect the infrastructure pillar to have been established.

As set out in the National Security Strategy and the Resilience Action Plan (RAP), protection and defence of Critical National Infrastructure is a central strand of the Cabinet Office-led cross-Government Home Defence Programme. This is overseen centrally by the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister. The commitments from the RAP will be delivered over the course of this Parliament.

Pursuant to the Answer of 3 September 2025 to Question 72570 on National Security: Infrastructure, when he plans to have completed delivery of CNI Knowledge Base.

The CNI Knowledge Base is a secure digital tool that is designed to be a “single source of truth for UK CNI’’. CNI Knowledge Base is part of the National Situation Centre. The CNI Knowledge Base’s roll-out across the government is complete. The Knowledge Base maps both physical and logical CNI systems and the supporting systems which keep them running. This enables government to identify linkages and dependencies between systems and across CNI sectors. Departments are already using it to understand key CNI systems and the potential impacts of hazards, threats and risks. We are continually introducing new features and onboarding more users.

What the responsibilities are of the National Situation Centre.

The National Situation Centre – established in 2021 – provides situational awareness for crisis response and national resilience. It is regarded internationally as a benchmark for Government use of data in crisis. The National Situation Centre is part of COBR. The National Situation Centre ensures that ministers and officials have access to relevant and timely data for decision making. More than 700 anonymised and aggregated data sets have been mapped or ingested and, at short notice, analysis can be produced for almost 90% of risks identified in the National Risk Register. Dashboards are hosted on a dedicated secure platform, built by the National Situation Centre, and are shared across government and with the devolved governments. A number of bespoke reporting tools have either been created or are under development to provide insight into the most serious risks. The National Situation Centre has also developed a “digital National Risk Register” platform to interrogate the impacts of a risk, or a number of risks. It allows users to see the impacts which the materialisation of a risk may cause and immediately determine which of those impacts are compounded if multiple risks were to occur concurrently. If a new pandemic were to emerge, we would be able to consider complex, concurrent scenarios in minutes. The National Situation Centre is also responsible for sending Emergency Alerts to mobile phones, as part of the COBR process.

How attendees at the College for National Security are selected.

Online training courses provided by the College for National Security are open to all civil servants, public servants and crown servants. Attendance at events held by the College are approved on a first come first served basis. For certain practitioner courses, a short application process is sometimes required. When required, these applications are anonymously evaluated based on the applicant’s experience, interest and ambition in the subject. The College will sometimes curate the learning groups to ensure a good mix of departments. As its learner base grows, the College will keep its systems under review.

With reference to the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy, CP 1337, published on 23 June 2025, what procurement reforms will his Department introduce to improve the process in order to secure government contracts.

The UK’s Procurement Act, introduced by the previous administration, came into force on 24 February 2025 alongside a National Procurement Policy Statement aligning procurement to this Government's missions.This Government also announced on 26 June 2025 a new 10-week consultation entitled Public Procurement - Growing British industry, jobs and skills.These reforms aim to go further to strengthen the UK’s economic resilience and support British businesses. Our proposals will protect supply chains, support our businesses, create good local jobs, and deliver greater value for taxpayers.We will set out our response and further measures shortly.

How many days were lost to sickness absence by civil servants in their Department (a) in total and (b) on average per employee between 5 July 2024 and 4 July 2025.

Sickness absence data for the Civil Service, including departmental breakdowns is published annually, and is available here: Sickness absence in the Civil Service - GOV.UK. The next update will be for the year ending 31st March 2025.

With reference to page 27 of the National Security Strategy 2025, published on 24 June 2025, who will be responsible for the creating of a Biothreats Radar.

The Cabinet Office’s National Situation Centre is responsible for creating the Biothreats Radar. The Radar brings together information on human, animal, and plant health risks to create a powerful, near real-time view of emerging biological threats and the impact they could have.

With reference to page 11 of the National Security Strategy 2025, published on 24 June 2025, what progress she has made in enhancing the resilience of critical national infrastructure.

The UK Government is committed to building the security and resilience of UK critical national infrastructure (CNI). On 8 July this year, the Government published the Resilience Action Plan, which sets out this government's strategic approach to increasing the UK's resilience against the risks the UK faces. To improve CNI resilience, UK Government has committed to continue delivery of CNI Knowledge Base - the UK government’s world-leading CNI mapping tool; map and fully use the complex network of reserved and devolved standards for CNI sectors, which are fundamental in holding industry to account and assuring the resilience of UK CNI; develop a new Cyber Resilience Index to build on existing cyber resilience measures to provide a cross-sector, holistic overview of cyber resilience for UK CNI; and raise resilience by using UK government resources, including the expertise of our National Technical Authorities (including National Cyber Security Centre and National Protective Security Authority), to provide world-leading advice on security and resilience best practice directly to businesses.