Thank you, Robert and the CPS for all the great work that you’re doing, both at the Centre for Policy Studies, and as a member of the Strategic Trade Advisory Group in DIT.

It’s 31 years, ladies and gentlemen, since Margaret Thatcher left office, which makes me realise just how old I am. However, her 11 years as Prime Minister have significantly shaped the United Kingdom that we all know and love today.

That Iron Lady, that great lady, redefined Britain, launching an economic revival that transformed our country’s standing in the world.

Built on not standing still and not accepting the status quo.

Through free trade, free enterprise, and international cooperation.

Like at the 1985 Bonn Summit, where Thatcher and other G7 leaders ushered in a new era of trade liberalisation and free market capitalism by agreeing that – and I quote – “Protectionism does not solve problems, it creates them.”

And her leadership was the catalyst for a remarkable period of UK and indeed global growth.

She energised our country and ensured we were once again competitive on the world stage.

And indeed today, we are presented with many of the same challenges that faced Mrs Thatcher.

Protectionism – undermining global trade and growth.

The spectre of inflation hanging over the global economy, at least in part driven by disruption to supply chains.

Uncertainty about the future of the global economy – caused by those long-term impacts of the pandemic, geopolitical shifts, and the rapidly growing Indo-Pacific markets.

As well as a global trading system in need of reform, and renewal of free and fair trade values, in the midst of climate change.

So to face up to these challenges we need to channel Margaret Thatcher’s optimism, her dynamism, and her clarity of purpose.

So today, I would like to set out to you how we are going to chart a new course now that we are once again a truly independent trading nation, and use our newfound freedom to once again become global champions of free and fair trade.

So we will forge stronger trading relationships with like-minded countries to liberalise trade and open market, put rocket boosters under our exports, and break down the barriers to market access.

These wins don’t often make the headlines but they do create billions of pounds in new exports every year.

So giving the right support to businesses of all sizes, championing their unashamedly brilliant goods and services.

And banging that drum around the world to remind investors that there has never been a better time to invest in the UK.

First and foremost, our vision for the UK’s future as an independent trading nation means recognising just how much we have to offer the world.

As the previous Minister for Energy responsible for delivering the Net Zero Strategy, I am passionate and indeed deeply embedded in the detail about how our domestic economy can become genuinely clean and green. Our army of green innovators are now also set to deliver as much as £170 billion of export sales by 2030 with each one accelerating the global green transition.

Lady Thatcher set us on this course by putting the threats from climate change on the political map, both at home and around the world.

And the UK has just hosted COP26, where critical decisions were agreed for the world to get ahead of climate threats – and UK leadership out in front must and will continue.

And it is in the spirit of Thatcher’s words, back in 1989, that ‘those countries who are industrialised must contribute more to help those who are not’, that our entrepreneurs today export their pioneering green goods and services around the world.

From Alexander Dennis who are exporting electric buses, to Crep Protect who export their innovative products to 52 different markets around the globe.

The UK today is also, of course, a services and digital technology superpower. We are the world’s second largest services exporter, and the fifth biggest exporter of digital tech services.

As well of course as the world-leading financial services hub here in the City of London, up and down the country we are home to global titans of professional services and creative industries.

Meanwhile, our superb shipbuilding, maritime equipment, technology, and manufacturing sectors underpin our trade in everything from cars to cyber, and pharmaceuticals to professional services.

Our task is to capitalise on these amazing strengths – setting the frameworks for Great British Business to thrive from Washington DC to Wellington.

This in turn will create jobs, opportunities, and prosperity across every part of our United Kingdom, whilst championing the causes of free markets, free enterprise, and free trade.

And we do this for a reason.

Free trade is the engine that drives growth and prosperity.

Raising the quality of life for all our citizens by providing consumers with lower prices and greater choice.

That is why we are determined that Global Britain, the home of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, remains an unapologetic champion of free trade and enterprise.

Unleashing Britain’s potential to power our economic recovery, making our businesses more dynamic, and levelling up our country as we build back better from Covid-19.

And opposing calls for isolationism and protectionism – not by making ourselves strategically dependent on fair-weather friends, but by standing tall with like-minded partners to champion free and fair trade for all.

Working to strengthen and reform the WTO and make global trading rules fit for the 21st century. Rules that promote our high standards and allow our businesses to compete fairly in the global market.

And using our influence and shaping international trade to reflect our core values including freedom, fairness, sovereignty, the rule of law, and environmentalism, across the world.

And ensuring that we do not yield to those who argue that we should put barriers up.

Meaning that British firms would lose contracts overseas, higher prices in the shops – and depriving developing countries of vital growth.

To trade freely, we must also trade fairly.¬ To protect our open international order, we must stand against unfair competition and those who seek to undermine our enterprise.

So we will proactively address risks to our national security, economic resilience. We will defend our values. And we will challenge tackling the market-distorting practices that put our businesses at an unfair disadvantage.

We are not alone. Our G7 allies share this vision, and I will be forthrightly making our case at next week’s WTO Ministerial Conference.

Because our vision is much more than simply defending Britain’s proud free trading history.

It is rooted in a recognition of the seismic shifts happening across the global economy today – focusing not on the next quarter or year, but the decades to come.

As my department’s Global Trade Outlook highlighted, the global centre of economic gravity will continue shifting eastwards, with the seven largest emerging economies projected to surpass the economic size of the G7 during the 2030s.

And between 2019 and 2050, more than half of global growth is expected to come from the Indo-Pacific.

Within that, South Asia will grow particularly quickly. And India is projected to be the world’s third largest economy by 2050.

India is, of course, one of our most significant export markets, and I look forward to launching our trade talks soon with them.

And the global economy is also becoming more services orientated, as rising incomes in emerging markets shift those spending patterns.

There could be almost 2 billion more middle class consumers on the planet by 2050, and around three quarters of these increases will be in the Indo-Pacific region.

And these are trends we therefore cannot afford to ignore.

So a long-term vision for trade means adapting to this changing reality – and reaching out to seize opportunities in the emerging, high-value markets where demand for our world-class goods and services is high.

This means focusing our efforts on those parts of the world that can supercharge UK trade in the industries of the future like digital, services and tech.

Not retrenching and retreating into protectionism, but reaching out to trade with the world’s fastest-growing markets, whilst ensuring Britain’s status as a global exporter, centre for foreign investment, and champion of international trade remains firm.

So far we have agreed trade deals with 70 countries plus the EU – trade worth a whopping £766 billion every year.

And so now we are working flat out to forge ambitious deals with like-minded and strategic partners around the world, that will put the UK at the centre of a network of modern Free Trade Agreements spanning the Americas and the Pacific.

We are in negotiations to accede to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, one of the world’s largest free trade areas, composed of 11 Pacific nations with dynamic economies from Chile to Malaysia, Vietnam to Peru. Boasting a combined GDP of more than £8 trillion in 2020.

And we have launched our consultation with a view to commencing negotiations with the Gulf Cooperation Council states in the months ahead.

All these deals will create countless new opportunities for our exporters and deliver better choice and value for consumers.

Supporting UK business is central for me. So, wherever in the world they arise, we will tackle the market access barriers that our businesses face, enabling them to trade and invest freely.

Closer to home, if we are to truly embrace the new opportunities we are creating, we must empower our brilliant entrepreneurs to look forwards, outwards and to the future. As we did last week, hosting the inaugural International Trade Week which was supporting and encouraging businesses to export and sell to the world, and showcasing the long-term support that is available to help them do so.

Leveraging our Tradeshow programme to bring that support to every corner of the UK, therefore making it easier for businesses to trade by investing in tools like the Single Trade Window – a one stop shop for all data from traders into Government.

And putting a new emphasis on spreading support across the UK through our world-leading export credit agency, UK Export Finance.

And last week we launched our ambitious and refreshed Export Strategy.

As a key feature of this, the Export Support Service will extend its reach with hubs across all four nations of the UK to assist businesses trading with the EU and around the world.

Our strategy is driven by the mission to reach exports of a trillion pounds in goods and services per year by 2030. This is indeed an ambitious goal, but I do believe that by working closely with business, and providing the support they need, we can achieve it.

We must also maintain trust in free and fair trade. And we will do this by equipping our businesses with the tools they need to tackle unfair and pernicious trading practices.

The independent Trade Remedies Authority was established to allow businesses to seek redress against dumping, subsidisation, and unfair surges of imports. And this will provide stability and predictability for exporters and investors alike.

Our vision for the future also means maximising foreign direct investment, just as Margaret Thatcher did. Now, as then, it generates so much prosperity in the UK and deepens our links with allies across the world, leading to higher wages, stimulating business efficiency, and boosting productivity: exactly what we need to lead the global recovery.

That is why our new Office for Investment is harnessing the expertise of our Government, its global network, and the private sector to provide a ‘concierge service’. Giving renewed focus and structure to our offer for top tier investors around the world.

Mrs Thatcher brought Nissan to the North-East at a time when they were the world’s most innovative car manufacturers.

And the Office for Investment has been working to ensure they continue to be a key player the region, where they will continue to innovate and produce a new generation of all-electric vehicles…

This is just one great example which demonstrates the Office’s immense potential as a vehicle for delivering growth, levelling up and propelling us to net zero.

We also have huge plans for green investment. These were front and centre at COP26, and at our recent Global Investment Summit. Almost £10 billion was invested in green projects that will reduce emissions, create thousands of jobs, and spur our mission to level up the entire country.

So I hope this gives you a brief outline of the UK’s ambitious vision for trade.

Some critics have questioned whether we have the strategy to get there.

As if there should be some weighty tome sat, I don’t know, sat unaltered on a dusty shelf somewhere.

I’m afraid I fundamentally reject that approach.

Because our strategy is clear, dynamic, and built on strong foundations.

It is based on the principle of free, fair, rules-based international trade, the flexibility and dynamism afforded by our newfound status as an independent trading nation, and reaching out to seize the opportunities of a shifting centre of gravity in the global economy. Opportunities we are uniquely well placed to grasp.

It is a strategy not looking just at the next headline, the next quarter, or the next year, but realising those opportunities ahead in the decades to come.

It will make exporting easier for businesses, drive inward investment, and bring prosperity to every region and nation of our country.

Now, just as in Mrs Thatcher’s time, there are the naysayers and the doom mongers.

Who claim that we are ‘Little Britain’ – too slow, too weak, too inexperienced.

But – with the greatest respect to Matt Lucas – we are not Little Britain, and we never were. We are Global Britain.

For the first time in almost fifty years, we are no longer waiting on the EU’s Computer Says No bureaucracy, where trade talks drag on and on.

We are an independent trading nation, able to reach out on our own, securing great deals and empowering businesses to seize those opportunities of the future and create high-paying, highly-skilled jobs.

And to forge an open, enterprising economy which enables us to build back better from the pandemic, levelling up the whole of the UK.

With the energy, innovation, and engagement of businesses, communities and this ambitious strategy, we will unleash our nation’s brilliant potential and write a new chapter in our proud trading history.

Proudly championing all that is Made in the UK, Sold to the World, I hope that Margaret Thatcher, who put Global Britain back on the map, would be proud of our vision and our action plan to keep it there.

Thank you.

The government-owned organisation plans to invest in Energy Storage Systems – essentially giant battery packs – for service stations where the grid supply is not enough for rapid charging infrastructure.

The announcement comes following Transport Day at COP26, which focused on the global transition to zero emission transport, an aim of both the government and National Highways. It’s hoped the move will bring an end to ‘range anxiety’ by improving the network of charge points for EV drivers using England’s motorways and major A-roads.

These rapid chargers are part of Government’s vision for the rapid charge point network in England which set the goal of around 6,000 high powered chargers on the motorway network by 2035.

Malcolm Wilkinson, Head of Energy for National Highways, said:

We are working differently and innovating to support the switch to zero emission journeys.

Whilst we have limited control over the number of petrol and diesel cars on the network, by supporting the expansion of the rapid charge points network, we hope to increase EV drivers’ confidence for all types of journeys, both long and short.

These new Energy Storage Systems and the rapid chargers they supply will ensure that motorists are unlikely to be caught without somewhere to charge, which is a fantastic move for drivers and the environment accelerating the speed in which we transition to new electric vehicles.

Transport Minister Trudy Harrison said:

Our vision is to have one of the best electric vehicle infrastructure networks in the world and we want charging to be quick and easy for all drivers.

This additional investment will ease drivers’ range anxiety as we continue to power up the green revolution.

With the growth in demand for high powered charge points comes pressure to provide the power to supply these, especially at the furthest reaches of the Strategic Road Network (SRN)

Around 20 Energy Storage Systems will temporarily bridge this gap, storing energy in quiet periods to provide rapid high-power charging at busy times, until those motorway services can obtain increased power directly from the grid for rapid charging themselves.

Investing £11 million, National Highways is currently discussing the move with prospective suppliers and plans to install the energy storage systems, which will connect to the motorway services operators’ charge points, within the next two years.

With petrol and diesel vehicles the largest carbon emission contributor on the roads, it’s hoped easier access to increased numbers of high powered charge points will increase driver confidence in electric vehicles on longer journeys, encouraging people to make the switch.

National Highways has previously demonstrated its commitment to electric vehicles but is among a host of measures its taking to improve air quality and tackle carbon emissions from road transport as the UK takes steps to become a zero-carbon economy by 2050.

The company has invested £12.5 million into local authorities to encourage businesses with diesel van fleets to make the switch to electric.

The scheme has been made possible by National Highways’ Designated Funds programme designed to benefit people, the economy and the planet with an overall investment of £936m between 2020 and 2025.

National Highways has also invested in 72 new state-of-the-art Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) for it traffic officer rapid response fleet.

The new vehicles are set to cut around 250 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year while providing 4×4 capability and supporting a target to clear 86 per cent of motorway incidents within one hour.

The moves are all part of National Highway’s net zero carbon plan, which will see it rapidly cut carbon from road construction, maintenance and operations, and support the transition to zero emission vehicles. 

It has already stated sustained action towards decarbonising England’s motorways and A-roads so they can continue to bring significant benefits to motorists, communities and businesses in a net-zero future. 

The plan will put roads at the heart of Britain’s net zero future through three key commitments; achieving net zero for its own operations by 2030; delivering net zero road maintenance and construction by 2040; and supporting net zero carbon travel on our roads by 2050. 

Read the full net zero plan.

General enquiries

Members of the public should contact the National Highways customer contact centre on 0300 123 5000.

Media enquiries

Journalists should contact the National Highways press office on 0844 693 1448 and use the menu to speak to the most appropriate press officer.

As part of our latest job scams campaign, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) has been working with JobsAware and Cifas, to understand the impact of scams, and how information collected as part of a scam, is then used by scammers.

Signs of a potential job scam

Job scams are on the rise, and in 2020, seasonal job scams increased by 88% compared to 2019. With figures predicted to increase again this year, it’s important to remain vigilant and familiarise yourself with the signs of a potential job scam or fraudulent job advert.

The first two phases of this campaign focused on the signs of a potential scam, and as detailed below, included illegitimate contact details, poorly-written job adverts, and being asked for money.

Identity fraud

Alongside highlighting the importance of remaining vigilant, and raising awareness of signs of potential scams, we’re now looking at how information collected as part of a job scam can be used by scammers, and this includes identity fraud.

85% of identity fraud is committed via online channels, and Cifas members recorded almost 158,000 cases of identity fraud in the first nine months of 2021. Not only is this an increase of 17% compared to 2020, but this is equivalent to one person every 2.5 minutes.

Mike Haley, Cifas CEO, said:

The pandemic created numerous opportunities for criminals to steal victims’ personal and financial details, including through fake online job adverts. Personal information is extremely valuable to criminals as they can use a victim’s details to impersonate them and apply for products and services such as bank accounts, loans, and credit cards.

Always take a moment to stop and think before handing over your personal or financial information, or when sharing documents such as a passport, driving licence, or bank statement.

Case studies

Case study one

Finchley applied for a job that was posted online, and was asked to pay for a DBS check as part of the process. Upon paying for the DBS check, communication stopped, and Finchley realised he had been the victim of a scam.

Case study two

Naomi came across a job on an online job board, and as part of the application, provided her name, address, and a variety of scanned documents. She was then asked for money, and when she refused, communication stopped.

The full case studies can be found here: Job scams – case studies (PDF, 89.1KB, 2 pages)

What to do if you think you have fallen victim to a job scam

If you suspect you have been targeted, or have been the victim of a job scam, there are a number of ways to report this, including via the JobsAware portal. They will investigate and take further action if necessary.

If you have parted with money as part of a suspected job scam, please contact the police and they will take the matter further.

Further information can also be found on Cifas’ website.

Who are JobsAware and Cifas?

JobsAware is a not-for-profit organisation that informs people of how to avoid and report job scams and other unfair working practices. More information about their work can be found on the JobsAware website.

Cifas is a not-for-profit fraud prevention membership organisation that manages a database of fraudulent conduct. Members of Cifas include organisations across all sectors, who share their data to reduce instances of fraud and financial crime. More information can be found on the Cifas website.

Further information

For more details on the campaign, please use the details below.

The government has today (22 November 2021) confirmed that it will provide up to £4.3 million to fund direct flights between London and Newquay, and London and Dundee, in a major boost for regional links across the country.

Cornwall Council will receive up to £1.8 million over 2 years to run flights from London to Newquay in a reinstated public service obligation (PSO) agreement that will create hundreds of jobs and keep people connected as we build back better from the pandemic.

The government has also confirmed that it will provide up to £2.5 million to fund direct flights for a further 2 years between Dundee and London until 2023. This funding will keep an important route running, supporting regional links across the country.

The 2 PSO agreements ensure that people from both ends of the country can stay connected through direct flights and benefit from economic growth through encouraging tourism and business travel for years to come.

The airline Loganair will continue to run the flights to Dundee, operating from Dundee Airport to London City Airport. Flights from Cornwall Airport Newquay to Gatwick will start on 9 December 2021 and will be operated by Eastern Airways.

Robert Courts Aviation Minister said:

We’re maintaining these vital transport links, including the hugely popular London to Dundee and the reinstated Newquay to London routes, for people right across the country for tourism and business travel.

The government is fully behind UK regional connectivity and strengthening these routes as we build back better from the pandemic.

UK Government Minister for Scotland Iain Stewart said:

It’s great news that flights between London City and Dundee have been secured for another 2 years.

As we work to improve transport connectivity across the whole country, this route will continue to allow quick and easy travel between Tayside and the UK capital, supporting economic growth and job creation.

Cornwall Council cabinet portfolio holder for transport, Philip Desmonde, said:

It is vital for our residents and business community that direct flights between Newquay and London are maintained and I welcome the news that Eastern Airways will operate our key route. This PSO service not only protects Cornwall’s links with London but also offers excellent connectivity around the world into the future.

While connectivity is vital, we must seek to minimise the impact of air travel on the environment. The Council has worked with all parties to ensure that the environmental impact of the air route is kept to a minimum by selecting aircraft which have lower emissions and lower noise impacts, as well as aligning schedules to ensure capacity meets demand.

Aviation forms part of the Department for Transport’s commitment to decarbonise transport by 2050, which includes a number of initiatives and commitments to enable domestic aviation to achieve net zero.

Minister for Transport Graeme Dey said:

I welcome the extension of this contract which will continue to provide important connectivity for Dundee.

This service will benefit business travellers and offer visitors a direct route to experience the tourism offering in the city and surrounding area.

The Scottish Government is committed to continuing to support the service both through our direct contribution to the cost of the flights and our ongoing subsidy of Dundee Airport.

Richard Hill, Chief Commercial Officer at London City Airport, said:

Connecting all parts of the UK to London has always been core to our business and we are delighted that the service to Dundee has been extended for another 2 years. Working alongside Loganair and partners at both ends of the route, our ambition is for this service to develop and grow business and tourist travel between both cities.

This all ties into the government’s wider work to levelling up and close regional inequalities through the UK with stronger transport links.

The PSO keeps this vital link open connecting the UK.

It is wonderful to see our friends on this side of the Atlantic and of course for me personally, knowing Niall but also being associated with the foundation as well.

This Foundation has a well-established reputation and an incredible history, a proud history of speaking up for liberty and advancing conservative values and beliefs.

And of course it was in 1989, it was Margaret Thatcher took pride in declaring that “we in the Conservative Party are conviction politicians. We know what we believe. We hold fast to our beliefs. And when elected, we put them into practice.”

Being here today is very much a reminder that our international coalitions – throughout the conservative movement – are based upon principles, purpose and conviction.

And of course we are the generation of politicians who follow in the footsteps of political giants – Margret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan – the very people who stood up to our enemies, confronted the hard issues of the nanny state, defended our values with conviction and belief and tackled those who stood in the way of our economic freedoms.

And at the core of our values system is the principle of safety and security.

Now in my role as Home Secretary, the safety and security of the people of the United Kingdom is fundamental to everything that I do.

Security and safety can only be achieved by working with our friends and allies, because not only are we united in our shared values, but we are united in our desire to be safe.

It also means playing my part in protecting the rules-based international order and, of course, our abiding desire to be free, because our freedom is utterly dependent upon security.

So if you ask me if I’m more of a free-marketeer or more concerned with law-and-order, I will tell you now that’s a false dichotomy.

Free markets do not exist in a state of nature. They can only exist with the rule of law.

You cannot have free markets in a thriving economy if people, property, and businesses are unprotected.

What capitalism represents is freedom – the space to create, ingenuity –the very thing our adversaries seek to undermine.

And they do so not just to gain economic advantage, but of course to destabilise us altogether.

That is something we must not let them do.

Nor can democracy function without security. Someone cannot vote freely if she is scared, or intimidated or if her choices are not legally upheld.

Democracies collapse in the absence of security.

And nobody has the freedom to thrive and succeed if they are not safe and secure.

Security is the great rock upon which freedom sits. If you chip away at that rock, freedom will be eroded bit by bit.

And there are so many of us that speak passionately about how hard-won our freedoms were, and of course how easily they could be lost.

Mrs Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were steadfast and united in their belief in freedom as they confronted the “evil” empires of communism and socialism. And they were right to do so.

But we must never forget that rock that underpins those freedoms must be defended too, and that it will crumble if we do not work together to preserve it.

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Freedom seemed to have won so comprehensively it was even suggested that history had ended.

32 years later, we know that is not true.

There is nothing inevitable about the future.

If we want a future in which we are prosperous, happy, and free, we will have to continue to work for it…

And with that, that means co-operation among allies on our shared security threats and holding a clear understanding that if we don’t have security, we will have none of the things we want or even take for granted, and of course many the things we do not want.

So today, I would like to speak about the global picture and the various threats we face as allies – all of which endanger our shared freedom and prosperity.

This year we saw the withdrawal from Afghanistan – a major event pressing a broad range of challenges amongst us all.

The United Kingdom responded at great speed – in extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances to bring Afghans who shared our values and also worked alongside us to safety and to extract others left vulnerable by the change of regime in Afghanistan.

Strengthened by our Five Eyes and other international partnerships, our commitment to NATO remains vital and steadfast.

And we see in the case of Afghanistan why security and safety for women and girls is so vital – and also how it is central to economic prosperity.

The United Kingdom, like other allies, is proven a safe haven for people at risk, including women, girls and minority groups.

We won’t need to explain to any of them that freedom depends upon security.

All the while, we need to be alive to the changing situation in Afghanistan and how it alters the geopolitical and global security picture, as well as closely following developments elsewhere.

The context for 2021 and the years ahead is very different to what has gone before.

It is also incumbent on all of us to act – to tackle existing threats but also to protect ourselves against future ones.

State threats materialise in multiple forms. Physical threats to people and to life – such as through assassination, forced repatriation, or harassment.

The physical threats to our way of life and to our values – including sabotage, threats such as espionage, and interference.

Supplemented by invisible threats – cyber-attacks, malware, fraud, extortion, and intellectual property theft

Resulting in an erosion of our freedoms, harm to our economic stability – all underpinned by deliberate intent to destabilise our security and the rules-based order on which it stands.

And then there are the threats to geostrategic interests.

Occasionally, these actions will be completely brazen and so overt, such as with the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 and the Salisbury Novichok poisonings of 2018.

These outrages were perpetrated with very clear intent, the clear intention of sending a message that perceived disloyalty will not be tolerated. That is completely at odds with freedom.

I recently announced in relation to Salisbury that arrest warrants are now in place for three additional men. And just yesterday, I confirmed that we in the United Kingdom will hold a public inquiry. And I will be robust in my continuation in my work to pursue justice in terms of what happened around Salisbury.

But when this outrage occurred in the United Kingdom needed support from our international allies. When we expelled 23 undeclared Russian intelligence officers, 28 other countries and NATO joined us and supported us, resulting in the largest collective expulsion ever – of more than 150 Russian intelligence officers.

This degraded Russian intelligence capability for years to come. Our friends knew that this grotesque act was not just a human tragedy but an assault on our nationhood and on liberty.

It is a reminder of how intricately freedom and safety are one.

Meanwhile, espionage is evolving. Governments continue to spy on each other, but spying now has a much further reach, including into our universities and businesses.

It is not only inherently improper for countries to try to influence each other – which is of course why I am here over this side of the Atlantic this week!

But importantly we can never allow national security of our nations to be compromised.

Despite the power of diplomacy, one of the most significant threats to our security continues to be malign interference.

The activities of those hidden relationships where public figures are encouraged to pursue and push another country’s interests, hack-and-leak operations and organised crime and trolling.

We in the UK will no longer tolerate such brazen attacks and the brazen way we have seen our national security subject to such activities. Our upcoming legislation will represent the biggest counter state threats legislation in over one hundred years.

To share just two examples, we will modernise existing counter-espionage laws to better reflect the contemporary threat; and we will improve our ability to protect official data and strengthen the associated offences.

Our strategic partnership must continue to address all this activity – which is uninhibited and growing along with all the other threats we see in day in, day out.

Absolutely critical to this remains our CT partnerships with the US, where our shared focus and approach is central to protecting both of our countries – which I am determined to deepen even further over the coming months and years.

Of course, we still face threat of terrorism. This too is a threat that mutates.

Following major incidents, there have been two changes to the threat level in the United Kingdom in recent weeks. It is now at “severe” – the second highest level.

The United Kingdom’s approach to terrorism of all kinds takes place under four main workstreams: prevent, pursue, protect, and prepare.

And it is thanks to the superb and largely unsung work of United Kingdom counter-terrorism agencies, since 2017 that 31 plots that were in their latter stages have been foiled.

The threats we face today have of course changed. They can play out in the battleground, or in a bedroom.

And low sophistication is changing the way we must all act to defend ourselves.

As with all security issues, as terrorism becomes more complex, so our response needs to become more sophisticated and nuanced.

We must constantly strive to refine our approach and strengthen our domestic and collective resilience.

To respond to an evolving and serious threat, we are scaling up our efforts to tackle hatred and radicalisation and strengthen our capability to disrupt those who seek to radicalise others into violence and terrorism.

This of course means working very closely with policing, relevant experts, and other government departments and experts to build a picture of possible threats to society. I will continue use every tool and every lever at my disposal.

One of these tools is data. Considerable data-sharing is already happening at the highest levels to protect us from terrorism and criminal activity and I will continue to push the United States and other allies for further cooperation in this area.

Islamist extremism is so significant, it is an enduring threat. It is heavily influenced by theatres of conflict and geopolitical changes, and how these are presented online.

A belief that democracy is decadent and evil is, of course, a core tenet of Islamist extremism.

The United Kingdom is a committed member of the Global Coalition Against Daesh, co-leading the effort to counter propaganda and hosting Counter-Daesh Communications Cells.

Since I became Home Secretary in 2019, I have proscribed four extreme right-wing terrorist groups, all of which spread vile, antisemitic propaganda.

Sikh separatist extremism has also caused considerable tensions in recent years. While we stoutly defend freedom of expression, it must always be within the law.

We have expanded our disruptions capability to better address those people who seek to radicalise but who operate, often intentionally, below legal thresholds.

We now need to focus on how we can go further to analyse, prevent and disrupt the spread of high-harm extremist ideologies that can lead to community division and to radicalisation into terrorism, particularly those that radicalise others but deliberately operate below CT thresholds.

There are a wide range of offences and powers that can be used to counter the threat from extremism and we are working to maximise their use. These include powers to regulate charities; broadcasting and education; immigration powers; and offences such as encouragement of terrorism and public order offences.

And today I have laid an order in the United Kingdom Parliament to amend Schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000 to proscribe Hamas in its entirety – including its political wing.

Hamas has significant terrorist capability, including access to extensive and sophisticated weaponry, as well as terrorist training facilities, and it has long been involved in significant terrorist violence.

But the current listing of Hamas creates an artificial distinction between various parts of that organisation – it is right that, that listing is updated to reflect this.

This is an important step, especially for the Jewish community. Hamas is fundamentally and rabidly antisemitic.

Antisemitism is an enduring evil which I will never tolerate. Jewish people routinely feel unsafe – at school, in the streets, when they worship, in their homes, and online.

This step will strengthen the case against anyone who waves a Hamas flag in the United Kingdom, an act that is bound to make Jewish people and the community feel unsafe.

Anyone who supports or invites support for a proscribed organisation is breaking the law. That now includes Hamas in whatever form it takes.

We tolerate extremism, it will erode the rock of security. I led work with colleagues to protect our country’s intellectual property and other interests.

I also launched new Counter-Terrorism Operations Centre, bringing together policing, the intelligence agency, and the criminal justice system coordinating their expertise, resources, and intelligence in a state-of the-art facility.

Meanwhile, our Victims of Terrorism Unit is there to provide support for all victims, regardless of their nationality, after a UK-based attack.

We have to carry on working phenomenally hard, through our Five Eyes partnerships and other international partnerships.

And I will always encourage Five Eyes partners to strengthen our arrangements when it comes to the appalling and abhorrent issue of child sexual exploitation and abuse as well as counter-terrorism.

The instant communication enabled by modern technology – which is so positive in so many ways – inevitably makes the challenge of keeping our people more safe rather hard.

It also demands an international response, a global response, and that is what I am pursuing.

Terrible ideas and falsehoods spread like wildfire, radicalising and emboldening. The incitement and financing of terrorism are both rife online.

Freedom of speech does not include the right to incite terrorism.

The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism is an example of strong progress, but the truth is that we need to do so much more.

End-to-End encryption brings further risks – indeed in my view it jeopardises the good work that has gone before.

Messages are already encrypted as standard – but end-to-end encryption where neither the platform operator nor law enforcement can see the content jeopardises much of that work.

Reasonable people instinctively understand that law enforcement has got to be able to track and tackle the sharing of terrorist material or child abuse images where it has a legal warrant to do so. That would be the same in the offline world.

Merely removing offending accounts from a platform is nowhere near good enough and social media companies need to take greater responsibility for the harms, the very harms that they are responsible for.

I will continue to call on all our allies to back the United Kingdom’s approach of holding technology companies to account for the harmful content they host on their platforms and if they neglect public safety when designing products.

Our Online Safety Bill will place on technology companies a binding duty for care of their users and end-to-end encryption will not release companies from that duty.

It is hyperbolic and wrong to assert that these concerns are really about snooping on the blameless or an assault on freedom. If that were so, I would be the first to speak out.

This is about public safety and keeping people safe from evil.

Now, it is through these very platforms that illicit finance enables most of the shared threats we face from terrorism, organised crime, and other malicious actors to thrive.

The risk of dirty money is one we are all aware of and it requires significant global action to tackle illicit financial flows.

The G7 delivered strong commitments to tackle corruption and kleptocracies as part of the United Kingdom’s presidency, as will next month’s Summit for Democracy here in the US.

A close relation of illicit finance is of course cybercrime.

As technology develops, so do the opportunities for cyber criminals. The arrival of 5G and the Internet of Things has created a multitude of new opportunities but also vulnerabilities, including inside people’s homes. The rapid advancement of 5G has been a salutary reminder to us all that we can never stand still in the field of technology and innovation.

Our security and freedoms are linked to the very way in which our strategic partnerships advance technological solutions and we must never be left to rely on technology that presents a risk to the security of our nations.

‘Deep Fake’ technology provides opportunities for fraud and identity theft – for the exploitation purposes and extortion.

There have been attacks on national infrastructure, business, individuals, civil society, and organisations of every type – even political parties are vulnerable now to ransomware attacks.

At the very least, these are assaults on our way of life and our national integrity.

At the worst, such as with attacks on our CNI, they represent an immediate and grave threat.

The United Kingdom has a specialist cyber law enforcement network and we are shifting to a “whole-of-cyber” approach, and that broadens the scope of our National Cyber Strategy beyond cyber security to now cover the whole of cyberspace.

By the end of the year, we will publish a National Cyber Strategy that will strengthen law enforcement and make our approach much more collaborative.

The Budapest Convention has helped to foster international cooperation on this issue and the United Nations is developing a new Cybercrime Treaty.

And just last month, the UK hosted a session on countering illicit finance as part of a multilateral event led by the United States seeking new global ways of disrupting ransomware attacks.

At the G7 summit, I called on all states to identify and hold to account cyber-criminal gangs who operate in their territories.

Perhaps the most chilling threats are the ones that we cannot see. Bioterrorism is the stuff of Hollywood movies and of nightmares, but sadly it is all too real.

It will flourish if we allow the break-down of the rules-based international order – as we saw in Salisbury and in the vile use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Even when a biological problem does not necessarily stem from a wicked, deliberate act – when it comes to diseases – the threat can be enormous and of course it does not respect international borders.

Chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear defence is yet another area that demands that we stick together and work together.

Even if someone is not killed by a biological attack, the impact on their health could easily be so devastating that their freedom to live their full life is severely compromised.

We cannot hope to stay safe or live freely if we are sheepish about calling out such wrongdoing.

What is true of minor domestic criminals is equally true on an international scale.

Several governments are willing and capable of overt and covert action that undermines the United Kingdom’s national security.

This includes such activity from state or state-based organisations in Russia, China, and Iran.

We respect the people of every country, but we will do whatever it takes to keep our country and our allies safe.

The British Government’s Integrated Review, published earlier this year, was a review of our national security and international policy and it made very clear that the actions of the Russian state pose an acute and it direct threat.

I have already spoken about Salisbury. Since then, we have repeatedly exposed the reckless and dangerous activities of Russian Intelligence Services.

We’ve called out Russia’s malicious cyber activity, sanctioned individuals responsible for hostile and malign activity against the United Kingdom and our allies, introduced new Chemical Weapons, Global Human Rights, and Global Anti-Corruption sanctions regimes and cracked down on illicit finance.

Now last year, working in tandem with Europe, we announced sanctions against the Russian Intelligence Services for cyberattacks against the United Kingdom and our allies.

We also took robust action in our response to the poisoning and attempted murder of Alexei Navalny – enforcing asset freezes and travel bans against 13 individuals and a Russian research centre.

As the US and UK set out in April this year, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service – the SVR – was behind a series of cyber intrusions, including the SolarWinds compromise.

There are also significant human rights concerns in China, and that’s in relation in relation to the Uyghurs and also Hong Kong.

And in the United Kingdom I am very proud that we have not forgotten our strong links to Hong Kong.

We created a new visa and new routes of settlement for Hong Kongers with British National (Overseas) status, who will now be able to live their life free from the fear of oppression.

In July, the United Kingdom and our partners were able to confirm that Chinese state-backed actors were responsible for gaining access to computer networks via Microsoft Exchange servers accessing email accounts, acquiring data, and deploying malware.

This affected more than a quarter of a million servers worldwide. Those hit included the Norwegian Parliament and European Banking Authority.

The United Kingdom signed a bilateral agreement setting out acceptable behaviour in cyberspace with China in 2015 and we continue to hold China accountable for it.

In December 2018, the UK Government and 14 other countries called out China’s Ministry of State Security for breaching the agreement.

In February, a Belgian court sentenced an accredited Iranian diplomat based in Vienna to 20 years imprisonment for his role in a plot to bomb a conference in Paris hosted by Iranian dissidents. The Belgian state security service stated that “the plan for the attack was conceived in the name of Iran and under its leadership.”

In July, the US DoJ announced that a New York court had unsealed an indictment against four people resident in Iran for their involvement in a plot to kidnap an unnamed Iranian-American journalist.

The indictment also detailed four other individuals under surveillance by the network, including one based in the United Kingdom.

Prosecutors said one of the conspirators was an Iranian intelligence official, while the other three were ‘assets’ of Iranian intelligence.

All of this shows that complacency for us all is simply not an option.

To conclude, you will all sense the extraordinary and evolving threats we face at home and abroad. And my message that defending the freedom we share requires us all to act in an agile, co-ordinated way to combat shared security threats and defend our shared values and the rules-based order.

The whole country in the United Kingdom was shocked only last month by the brutal killing of an MP, and that was my dear friend Sir David Amess. And last weekend we saw a fatal incident outside a maternity hospital in Liverpool. Both are being investigated as terrorist incidents.

I am very grateful for the way politicians and others from other countries have held out the hand of friendship.

A show of solidarity goes a long way. But the fact is that these dreadful events were not unprecedented, and that we have to work ferociously hard to defend our freedoms.

Effective national and international security policies mean giving each threat and hazard the resources it needs, while always maintaining the core expertise in each area and having the ability at a moment’s notice to surge capacity into a crisis.

Finally, it is worth remembering that things can change for the better, as well as for the worse.

Some of the United Kingdom’s closest allies today are countries whom we have fought wars in the past.

While we will not hesitate to protect ourselves, it is very much our preference not only to enjoy economic and diplomatic relations, but also to be friends.

Countries that embrace freedom invariably become more prosperous and with that, they also become safer, too.

Thank you.