Security and prosperity go hand in hand—we need a strong economy to support our security, and the investment driving our economic growth needs to be secure.
With that in mind, I am today announcing my intention to make a series of reforms to the National Security and Investment (NSI) Act 2021. These reforms are intended to keep the system up to date and transparent, and to reduce business burdens without exposing the country to greater risk.
First, I intend to remove the requirement for business to have to notify certain internal reorganisations and the appointment of liquidators, special administrators, and official receivers. These have proven to be very unlikely to present risk, and so removing these notification requirements will reduce burdens on businesses and free up Government time to focus more closely on higher-risk transactions. I will seek to bring secondary legislation to Parliament in due course.
Secondly, I am today launching a 12-week consultation on proposed updates to the notifiable acquisition regulations (“the NARs”), which set out the areas of the economy subject to mandatory notification under the NSI Act. The launch of this consultation draws from the conclusions of the statutory report I published on 19 December 2024. In response to the feedback, I will then consider what updates to take forward.
The consultation seeks views on the following proposals:
Reorganising how the NARs categorise activities in particular sectors to improve clarity. This includes creating new areas for semiconductors and critical minerals and removing them from the existing advanced materials area. The activities covered by the computing hardware area will be added to the semiconductors area.
Updating the areas for advanced materials, artificial intelligence, communications, critical suppliers to Government, data infrastructure, energy, suppliers to the emergency services, and synthetic biology.
Creating a new area to cover acquisitions in the water sector.
I expect these changes to the scope of the regulations would have a minimal overall impact on notification volumes, detailed further in the consultation document. Implementing these changes will also require secondary legislation, which I will bring to Parliament in due course.
Thirdly, I am today publishing the 2024-25 annual report alongside this package of reforms, fulfilling the requirements under section 61 of the NSI Act. A copy of the report will also be published on gov.uk.
The report shows that the Government took a decision on whether to call-in or clear all notified acquisitions within the statutory 30 working days. Of the 1,079 notifications reviewed, 95.5% were notified that no further action would be taken, and 4.5% were called in. In this reporting period, 17 final orders were issued and five called-in acquisitions were withdrawn before a decision was made.
Finally, I plan to publish more guidance in due course based on stakeholder feedback and will continue to look for ways to increase transparency in the NSI system.
[HCWS878]