Tackling State Threats Bill

The thread sits at pre-legislative scrutiny stage. The substantive state-threats statute book — NSA 2023, the NSI Act 2021, and the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act (CTBSA) 2019 Schedule 3 ports power — is in force and operationally bedded in 12. FIRS commenced on 1 July 2025 with the Commencement No. 2 Regulations (SI 2025/674) 3, supported by three further operational SIs: the Publication Regulations (SI 2025/675), the Exemptions Regulations covering specified foreign-power investment funds and education (SI 2025/676), and country-specific designations for Russia (SI 2025/684) and Iran (SI 2025/685) 456. STPIM use is reported quarterly under NSA 2023 s.55; the most recent WMS (HCWS1550, 29 April 2026) covered 20 December 2025 – 19 March 2026, with all four 2025–26 quarterly statements signed by then–Security Minister Dan Jarvis and repeated in the Lords by then–Home Office minister Lord Hanson of Flint 78. On the adjacent NSI Act regime, the government published its response to the Notifiable Acquisition Regulations consultation on 12 March 2026 (HCWS1394, signed by then–Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones), signalling scope changes to the mandatory sector regime 910. Cabinet Office and CMA signed an updated MoU on NSI operation on 26 March 2026. Higher-education protective guidance was issued in February 2026 alongside the MI5/intelligence briefings 1112, and a separate call for views on data brokers and national security closed on 4 December 2025 with a published government response the same day 1314.

Five developments dominate the last six months. First, the King's Speech announcement on 13 May 2026 confirmed the new Bill 1. Second, on 26 March 2026 the Home Office announced longer maximum sentences for espionage offences as part of national-security sentencing reforms — strongly signalling a sentencing component in the Bill. Third, on 12 March 2026 the government published its response to the NSI Act Notifiable Acquisition Regulations consultation (HCWS1394/HLWS1399), the substantive scope-of-mandatory-regime update for the adjacent investment-screening regime 234. Fourth, on 9 February 2026 MI5 and cyber security services delivered rare briefings to Vice Chancellors and political parties on foreign interference, accompanied by published HE guidance 56. Fifth, on 16 December 2025 then–Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood laid Jonathan Hall KC's first annual report as Independent Reviewer of State Threats Legislation (HCWS1179) — independent scrutiny baseline now established 7. Parliamentary scrutiny activity tracked these moves: a Commons debate on foreign interference on 11 December 2025 8 and an oral question session on 4 March 2026 on China and foreign-interference arrests 9.

The single most important watchpoint is Bill introduction, expected after the May 2026 King's Speech 1. Whether the Bill is published with its Explanatory Notes, Impact Assessment and Human Rights Memorandum together (as with NSA 2023) or staged will signal Government confidence in its drafting. Second, watch for further FIRS enhanced-tier specifications — Iran and Russia are the only two countries specified to date (SIs 2025/685, 684) and specifications proceed by regulations, so any addition (China is a notable absentee given the 4 March 2026 Commons debate on Chinese foreign-interference arrests 234) would be politically significant. Third, the next quarterly STPIM WMS is due around July–August 2026 (cycle from HCWS1550 on 29 April 2026) and will indicate whether STPIM use is rising in volume 5. Fourth, watch for the revised NSI Notifiable Acquisition Regulations SI following the March 2026 government response — the timing of that SI may interact with Bill clauses on foreign-power-controlled entity acquisitions 6. Fifth, expect the Independent Reviewer's 2025 report (annual cycle) in late 2026, which will be the first independent assessment of FIRS operation since commencement. Finally, watch the data-brokers workstream — the government response published on 4 December 2025 implies further regulatory action that may be carried in the Bill or in separate vehicle 7. The 2025 elections strategy commitment to a 'firewall against foreign interference' suggests cross-departmental Bill content with MHCLG 8.

Three substantive uncertainties bear on analytical confidence. First, the Bill's content is not yet public — the corpus contains only the King's Speech sentence 1 and inferable direction-of-travel from FIRS operationalisation, sentencing announcements 2 and the data-brokers consultation 3; precise drafting choices on proxy offences, FIRS scope extension and NSI interlock are genuinely unknown. Second, the FIRS impact assessment in corpus (HO IA 0447) is the IA for the predecessor regime and explicitly does not monetise enhanced-tier costs 4 — there is no Tackling State Threats Bill IA in the readable corpus yet, which is the expected pre-introduction artefact. Third, the human-rights envelope of any Bill expansion (Articles 6, 8, 10 ECHR) was contested in scrutiny of the NSA 2023 predecessor and the corpus does not yet contain a 2026 Joint Committee on Human Rights view; that scrutiny will arrive in the introduction window. Inferred from corpus gap: the Commons Library research briefing (CBP-9559) covers the predecessor Bill but no updated Library briefing for the new Bill is yet in the corpus 5. Source-availability caveat: Hansard debate bodies for the December 2025 and March 2026 foreign-interference debates 67 are titled but not retrieved in full in this build, so any thematic claim about MP positions in those sessions is necessarily