Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)

I thank my noble friend for his question. He is absolutely right. The Official Secrets Act is considered to be somewhat out of date: 1911 suggests that maybe the world has moved on slightly. The National Security Act came into force in 2023. It strengthens our legal powers and makes the UK a harder target for those states which seek to conduct hostile acts. It also provides the security services and law enforcement agencies with the tools that they need to deter, detect and disrupt modern-day state threats. The Act passed with cross-party support in your Lordships’ House and it is important that on matters of national security we embrace cross-party. There is a responsibility on all of us to make sure that national security remains at the heart of what we do. With regard to future legislation, there are two pieces of legislation coming before your Lordships’ House that will touch on these issues. The elections Bill is forthcoming and the new cyber resilience Bill was introduced in the other place last week and will be in front of your Lordships’ House in due course. Having said that, these are matters of national security. We will continue to monitor and to reflect on current legislation to make sure that our security services and everybody within this space has the legal framework in which they need to operate to ensure that we can do what we need to do when we need to do it.