Security
How we're protecting the UK
We are responsible for protecting the UK from the threat of terrorism and we work hard to keep everyone safe.
The terrorist attacks on London on 7 July and the attempted attacks on 21 July were shocking events which arrived with no warning. Though the security services do their utmost to defend our nation, such acts of terrorism are always a risk.
Response to extremism
The Home Secretary recently gave a major counter terrorism speech. 'We must challenge the ideology of violent extremism'. Read more on this story.
The Government has announced a tough new counter-terrorism bill. New powers to prevent terrorism.
We are also continuing to strengthen the laws against terrorism to enable the Police and Security Services to track down terrorists and prevent acts of terrorism occurring. See terrorism and the law for more on this.
Explore this section:
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How we’ll deal with chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attacks
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Practicing for terrorist incidents – putting our contingency plans into action
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Tightening our borders to keep terrorists out
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How we’re removing financial support for terrorism
Facts & figures
Since 9/11 we have substantially increased our counter-terrorism efforts and improved our forward planning and coping strategies for when the worst happens:
- Increased funding
- £85.5m to the NHS to counter bio-terrorism
- £56m to the Fire Service for decontamination programmes
- £132m to the Fire Service for search and rescue equiptment
- £49m to the Metropolitan Police
- £12m to national police forces
- Tightened port, airport and border security
- Speeded up extradition processes
- Frozen assets of international terrorist organisations
- Increased joint-working and intelligence sharing internationally
- Increased the size of the Security Service to analyse and act on information
- Continued the exercise programme to deal with terrorism scenarios
- Established chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) resilience programmes
