National security and investment: mandatory notification sectors
Read the full outcome
Detail of outcome
The responses from this consultation have been used to refine the definitions to provide further clarity to allow parties to self-assess whether they need to notify the Secretary of State when they are contemplating a relevant acquisition of control. The sector definitions within the government response document remain in draft so proposals during the remaining passage of the primary legislation can be taken into account. The final definitions will be set out in regulations in due course.
The consultation set out the 17 sectors which are most likely to give rise to national security risks. Those included:
- Advanced Materials
- Advanced Robotics
- Artificial Intelligence
- Civil Nuclear
- Communications
- Computing Hardware
- Critical Suppliers to Government
- Critical Suppliers to the Emergency Services
- Cryptographic Authentication
- Data Infrastructure
- Defence
- Energy
- Military and Dual-Use
- Quantum Technologies
- Satellite and Space Technologies
- Synthetic Biology (formerly known as Engineering Biology. This sector has been renamed in response to the consultation responses)
- Transport
Detail of feedback received
The consultation closed on 6 January 2021. We received 94 written responses to the consultation from:
- legal and advisory firms
- investors
- government bodies
- research bodies
- trade associations
- industry groups
- individual businesses
- individuals
Original consultation
Consultation description
This consultation is part of the government’s reform of its powers to scrutinise and intervene in business transactions to protect national security.
We are consulting on which sectors, and which parts of each sector, should be included within scope of the ‘mandatory regime’ set out in the National Security and Investment Bill. This will require acquirers making investments in those sectors to notify and receive approval from government before completing certain types of transactions.
The consultation sets out the government’s proposed definitions for the types of entity within each sector that could come under the Bill’s mandatory regime. Your feedback will inform the ultimate definitions and policy decisions that the government will bring forward into secondary legislation.
Please read the consultation document in conjunction with the National Security and Investment Bill.
See the BEIS consultation privacy notice.
Please do not send responses by post to the department at the moment as we may not be able to access them.
Documents
Updates to this page
Last updated 2 March 2021 + show all updates
-
Government response published.
-
First published.