Over the summer the government launched a consultation into the NSI Act and are proposing a series of reforms and updates.
The consultation seeks views on the following proposals:
- Reorganising how the NARs categorise activities in particular sectors to improve clarity. This includes creating new areas for Semiconductors and Critical Minerals and removing them from the existing Advanced Materials area. The activities covered by the Computing Hardware area will be added to the Semiconductors area.
- Updating the areas for Advanced Materials, Artificial Intelligence, Communications, Critical Suppliers to Government, Data Infrastructure, Energy, Suppliers to the Emergency Services, and Synthetic Biology. Some updates narrow scope (e.g. in Artificial Intelligence), some clarify requirements (e.g. in Synthetic Biology), and some increase scope (e.g. in Suppliers to the Emergency Services).
- Creating a new area to cover acquisitions in the water sector.
As part of this package of reforms, the government has:
- Announced its intention to remove the requirement for business to have to notify certain internal reorganisations and the appointment of liquidators, special administrators, and official receivers;
- Published a consultation on updating the Notifiable Acquisition Regulations (‘the NARs’), which set out the areas of the economy subject to mandatory notification;
- Announced that the Government is developing additional guidance based on stakeholder feedback; and
- Published the NSI Act 2024-25 Annual Report.
If you know of members that would be interested in sharing their views, please put them in touch with Helena Coe, who sits on the expert panel.