National Security (State Threats) Bill

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Oliver Dowden

2nd reading
Wednesday 17th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I totally agree with the hon. Member, and that is why we Opposition Members support the legislation. On AI, we can all see these challenges coming. We need to work cross-party and support the Government in finding ways to address them, because this is essentially the challenge of our age. Of course, AI will be able to strengthen our defences, but we should not be naive; the same tool that helps a defender to patch faster will of course also enable an attacker to breach faster. We have seen this with hostile states. Russia has already integrated cyber-sabotage, propaganda and deniable proxy activity into its campaign against the west. The same can be said for North Korea, which has not been touched on much in this debate, and Iran.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The internet outage in Iran knocked out a large percentage—5% or 10%, depending on who we believe—of Scottish separatist sites on social media. Do we genuinely believe that Iran is the only country seeking to weaponise social media? On one account, for example, someone claimed to be a nurse from Glasgow, but was fluent in Persian. Is it not likely that China and North Korea are doing exactly the same thing?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Separatism makes a country weaker, and there is no doubt that our enemies will encourage it. The example that he cited, which I also saw, is very telling of exactly that.