Select committee: Defence Committee
Recommendation 5
Foreign Involvement in the Defence Supply Chain
Published 14 Feb 2021
Paragraph 27
Addressed to Ministry of Defence
Defence Committee Foreign Involvement in the Defence Supply Chain All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Ministry of Defence’s open and country-agnostic approach to foreign involvement means that the defence supply chain has been open to potentially hostile foreign involvement, with reports of companies being owned and influenced by foreign Governments whose values and behaviours are at odds with our own and who are known to engage in intellectual property theft. The Ministry of Defence should publish a list of countries it Foreign Involvement in the Defence Supply Chain 31 considers friendly and from whom investment should be encouraged. All those countries falling outside of this list should be barred from investing in the UK’s defence supply chain, including China and Russia.
From: Defence Committee, Foreign Involvement in the Defence Supply Chain (HC 699), paragraph 27, 14 February 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 27 April 2021 (deadline 14 April 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's report, agrees with parts of it, and maintains its existing risk-based, case-by-case approach to foreign investment in the defence supply chain.
- On a list of friendly countries, the Government "notes" the recommendation but considers its current "risk-based approach" "remains appropriate", with each case examined individually.
- On Chinese ownership, it "notes" the recommendation, says it has assessed and "will continue to assess" investments where there are national security concerns, and does not consider it appropriate to comment on individual past decisions.
- It welcomes the Committee's support for the National Security and Investment Bill, which it says will bring "new powers to modernise our investment screening regime".
- On communication with small and medium sized enterprises, it "will seek to further enhance related communications" and "plan[s] to publish a refreshed SME Action Plan later this year".