Speeches by McFadden.

“I saw those comments. Of course, the United States—I think “muscular” was the word used—”

“I don’t think we thought that there would be food shortages as a result of an attack on one company, but we were very concerned about it, because these are very important and hugely valued high street businesses and the attacks on key retailers show the dangers of what cyber-criminals can do.”

“We have had a dialogue with the victims of these attacks. I have spoken to Marks & Spencer personally several times. I have also spoken about it to the head of the National Cyber Security Centre on more than one occasion, I think, and to the head of GCHQ. We are constantly asking: are they getting the help they need? I…”

“It does consider these issues both in formal sessions, and probably more deeply and regularly outside a formal session. There is an understanding among the different Ministers that we are living in this dynamic situation where economic security really matters. One of the things I did to help understanding of this was a…”

“Not always. Ms Edwards asked me about definitions, and the benefit of having a definition. It will not always be as simple as a flow chart; sometimes it is a judgment. That is the reality of the situations that we deal with.”

“I mentioned the Act. We have a system when there is an emergency: we have the Cobra system, with the Cobra team behind it. When there is a crisis or an emergency, that swings into action. It has been there for a while; it has been expanded in physical scope, in facilities and so on since covid. That is how we do it. So…”

“Partly, there is a legal regime. The NSIA, of course, is the foundation of that, and I am the decision maker for that. In specific investment in the sectors affected. As you probably know, there are 17 notifiable acquisition regulations—NARs, as they are called. Anything under that will be notified, looked at and consi…”

“We do use those three words, which are not unique to the way this country views it: promote, protect and partner. I would say that in the last 12 months, on two of those, there has been quite a step change from this Government. In terms of promote, we talked about the industrial strategy. That is the state saying, “Gov…”

“I know that the Committee is interested in this. It is a really interesting question, and I have seen some of the evidence that you have taken on it in recent sessions. On one level, who would be against writing things down? That is what Whitehall does for a living, morning, noon and night: it writes things down. If we…”

“It is a very good question. That happened before the regime was in place. That is not to say that the regime is foolproof. I am not here to say that the regime is foolproof, but it has been put in place since then. Your question of timing is a good one, because it raises the obvious issue of having a new regime, which …”

“It is a really good question. The first thing to remember about this regime is that it is quite young. In legislative terms, it is only a few years old. It has also had a great deal of ministerial disruption. Until Oliver Dowden took over as the decision maker for the National Security and Investment Act, his predecess…”

“Their starting point would be to read the industrial strategy. You asked me for a list; that is the written one. There is a danger in writing a list of certain sectors, because people will say, “What about me? Don’t you care about me?”—and we do care about others. However, there is a discipline in asking ourselves the …”

“The starting point should be a recognition of what Britain is good at. Actually, what Britain is good at is often a set of things that it has been good at for quite a long time. In one of the answers a few moments ago, I referred to our deep strength in research and innovation. That is not new. It is remarkable that it…”

“It is a good question. I will try to respond not with a list but a starting point.”

“They are set out in the early pages of the national security strategy. If memory serves me right, it is page 14—I could be wrong—where we set out the threat landscape. We have recently had some high-level briefing from the security agencies to the Cabinet on this. In a pure security sense, the biggest change in the thr…”

“It is certainly agile, and it probably is a bit different from that view of strategic autonomy. That said, we do not have all our eggs in one basket, and we do believe in capability. That is why it was part of our national security strategy. I made a statement to Parliament yesterday on resilience. Sometimes people str…”

“We are balancing things all the time in a very fast-changing world. We are geographically an island, but in trading mentality, we are not an island; we look outward. The United States deal that I referred to a few moments ago is not the only one that we have struck. In recent months, we struck a deal with India. We str…”

“Yes, he did, and that reflects a long-held French view about strategic autonomy. I think we view this slightly differently, based on the agreement that we had. Certainly, in the national security strategy, which we published a week or two ago, we talk about deep capability and about strength in depth in terms of what w…”

“I was very fortunate to be at the President’s speech yesterday. I have been in Parliament a long time, as you know, Mr Chairman, and I think I have been to two or three or those kinds of addresses. I thought he made an excellent, wide-ranging speech, and this visit is an important moment for the country. I heard what h…”

“Those community initiatives sound excellent. As I said in my statement, the Government have set aside some £4 billion for investment in flood defences over the coming years. We have all seen how things have changed over the past 10 or 20 years, and it is critical that we put in place the protections that communities ne…”