Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what processes are in place to ensure that representations can be made to the Defending Democracy Taskforce by non-members.

The Defending Democracy Taskforce was established in November 2022. Its mission statement is to reduce the risk of foreign interference to the UK’s democratic processes, institutions, and society, and ensure that these are secure and resilient to threats of foreign interference.

The Taskforce is a cross-departmental and inter-agency initiative made up of ministers and officials from policy-owning departments, including the Cabinet Office, Home Office, DSIT, DLUHC and DfE, law enforcement, the UK intelligence community and Parliament.

Meetings of the Taskforce will be complemented by wider formal engagement with partners outside central government and Parliament, including in the devolved administrations, local government and private, education and third sectors.

The government takes the risk of foreign interference in higher education very seriously.

This is why there is already a dedicated cross-government programme of work to assess and counter foreign interference in higher education. This responsibility ultimately lies with Department for Education, but the Taskforce has taken a keen interest in this issue and will continue to support efforts to protect academic freedoms and universities from the threat of foreign interference.