There’s a bit of discussion today over the fact that the National Security Council has not met recently. Some (speculative) thoughts follow in a long-ish thread that may be of interest to @pinstripedline @josephdevanny @PatPorter76 and others.

First, the NSC is an official sub-committee of Cabinet. It therefore follows the rules in the Cabinet Manual (and this formal fitting is seen as an advantage over its more ad hoc predecessors).

But bear in mind the NSC’s terms of reference are very short. As with COBR, bureaucrats and politicians like it this way, because the ambiguity gives flexibility. So other than it ‘should’ meet weekly (and even that isn’t in the TOR) there is little to dictate what NSC does.

Therefore, the content of what an NSC gets into is down to each individual PM’s preferences and how their No.10 runs, in conjunction with the National Security Adviser (the Secretary for the committee).

The NSC is meant to look at ‘strategic’ issues: this broadly means long-term issues or those with significant impact across the UK’s security interests. It meets weekly because of the volume of work. But obviously it can and will discuss issues with a nearer-term focus.

When operations started in Libya, although COBR was used at first, the NSC played a large role quite quickly. The Joint Committee which looks at the NSC was critical of this approach as too tactical. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201012/jtselect/jtnatsec/265/265.pdf

However, the ‘system’ at the time seemed more pleased with its performance (report below). The more recent consensus is that NSC was probably meeting too frequently and focussing too much on military detail. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/193145/Lessons-Learned-30-Nov.pdf

But this is all an illustration that it depends on the preferences of the PM. There is little to dictate what the NSC does, and more on how it does it (minutes, writing around departments etc).

So ‘should’ the NSC have discussed Covid-19 recently? The potential geo-political impact absolutely meets the definition of ‘strategic’ in terms of both depth and breadth. It’s also clearly a human security issue right now. So why hasn’t it?

The reasons are probably a mixture of appropriateness and the prosaic. First, as has been covered elsewhere, COBR was used as the initial response body: this is the ‘appropriateness’ bit.

And as the Defence Secretary mentioned yesterday, other ad hoc committees on variants aspects are being led by ministers. This may also be more appropriate in crisis response terms; other ministers can attend NSC, but the Health Secretary, for example, isn’t a member.

Prosaically and slightly pedantically, the NSC is not like the US equivalent which can meet as ‘Principals’ without the President. In the UK, no PM = no NSC. So the various ministers normally involved can meet, but that doesn’t ‘count’ as an NSC.

The NSC is also usually prefaced by an officials meeting, NSC(O), meeting the week before. If the system lacks capacity, say if the National Security Secretariat is handling COBR and the ad hoc ministerial meetings, that may prevent organising an NSC every week.

Equally prosaically, you need a secure space for the meeting to discuss intelligence and vulnerability issues. You can’t run this over Zoom. Ministers can have secure phones installed at their homes, but the UK doesn’t have the same suite of remote capabilities as the US.

There is also the question of what the NSC should actually discuss. There are any number of speculative articles out there on the impact of Covid-19. But while trends may be emerging, there is massive uncertainty because the crisis hasn’t yet played out.

So the full NSC probably hasn’t met for quite mundane reasons of capacity, security and availability, but it probably shouldn’t have a large role running the crisis anyway. There’s an obvious benefit in it meeting as soon as possible to discuss the implications of Covid-19.

It will need to think about how this affects the Integrated Review, and when that restarts. I’m not sure there is enough concrete yet on which to make major policy decisions, which is what the NSC should be doing. The Defence Secretary said yesterday that the JIC was at work.

That’s probably the necessary precursor for a better-informed NSC discussion once the PM is back. In short, there is no hard and fast rule about what the NSC ‘must’ be doing now, though there is a lot of what might be ‘desirable’.

In an ideal world, it might have had a discussion by now to shape later decisions, and if ministers were all physically in Whitehall, maybe it would have done so. But we have to be realistic about what is possible, and the relevant individual ministers appear to be in contact.