Select committee: Foreign Affairs Committee
Conclusion 1
Fifth Report - Refreshing our approach? Updating the Integrated Review
Published 18 Dec 2022
Paragraph 10
Addressed to Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Foreign Affairs Committee Update to the UK's Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Integrated Review has provided a robust and flexible framework to guide UK foreign policy decisions out to 2025. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has tested many of the assumptions underpinning the IR, and these have been found to hold true. A full-scale refresh is only warranted, given the scale of resources and time required to complete it, particularly at this exceptionally challenging time for Britain’s foreign and security policy, if the Government makes considerable changes or is prepared to fill in some of the gaps in more detail to justify this use of resources. Enhancing the resilience of the United Kingdom should be central to the refresh.
From: Foreign Affairs Committee, Fifth Report - Refreshing our approach? Updating the Integrated Review (HC 882), paragraph 10, 18 December 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 31 May 2023 (deadline 18 February 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government says IR2023 has "considered and taken on board the proposals put forward by the FAC", agreeing with most recommendations and partially agreeing with two.
- On resilience, it agrees and points to a new National Security Council sub-committee on resilience, chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, as the regular cross-government meeting, and a Director of Resilience in the Cabinet Office.
- On China, it partially agrees. It says it is "impossible, impractical, and unwise to sum up China in one word", such as "threat", and that it will "always put national security first" where tensions arise.
- On defence spending, it says it will maintain the 2% of GDP commitment and aim for 2.5% "as the fiscal and economic situation allows".
- On the Middle East, it partially agrees and states that the Middle East and North Africa "is not being deprioritised".