Clause 1 - Call-in notice for national security purposes

Part of National Security and Investment Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:30 am on 1 December 2020.

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Photo of Nadhim Zahawi Nadhim Zahawi Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy), The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care 10:30, 1 December 2020

What I am trying to get at is the point made so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble—the bottleneck issue. It is unlikely that adding this review, or requirement for a recommendation at the stage where the Secretary of State is assessing whether to issue a call-in notice, would be feasible within the 30-day window following the notification.

I remind the Committee that the Government’s impact assessment estimates that there will be at least 1,000 notifications every year. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble said, under this amendment, every single one would need a multi-agency review or an Intelligence and Security Committee recommendation, which would be a truly massive and, in my view, unfeasible undertaking.