In June 2020, I was honoured to be appointed as part of the UK Delegation to the the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Parliamentary Assembly.
NATO is an intergovernmental security alliance between 30 North American and European countries, established by the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. The Parliamentary Assembly is made up of 269 delegates from NATO member countries. Each delegation is based on the country's size and reflects the political composition of the parliament, therefore representing a broad spectrum of political opinion.
The Assembly’s principal objective is to facilitate mutual understanding between parliamentarians from NATO countries, promote debate on key security challenges and to strengthen the transatlantic relationship.
The UK delegation I was part of was appointed by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP in 2020, and the full list of representatives is available here.
NATO is the cornerstone of UK’s defence and security. I am proud to be representing the UK’s concerns and priorities regarding security at an international stage and to have the opportunity to present my new report to my international colleagues. We are extremely lucky that Wealden is a great, safe place to live, but unfortunately, we are not immune from international hostilities.
2021 NATO PA Women for Peace and Security Award
I am proud to have been nominated for the “Women for Peace and Security” Award, for my work raising the state organised violation and abuse of women, the forced sterilisations, and the incarceration of over a million Uyghur and the horrific conditions they are facing in as slaves in cotton fields and in prison factory camps in Xinjiang.
The award honours a woman who has made a particular contribution to the equal participation of women and men in the field of peace and security, the protection of women in conflict situations and/or the mainstreaming of women's needs and perspectives into relief and recovery initiatives in post-conflict countries.
I am honoured to have finished as runner-up to the Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
Member and Rapporteur of the Science and Technology (S&T) Committee
During my time as UK Delegate to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, I was proud to be a Member of the S&T Committee and selected as its Rapporteur for the 2020-2021 session and the 2021-2022 session.
2021 Report: ENHANCING NATO S&T COOPERATION WITH ASIAN PARTNERS
In 2021, I worked on a report focusing on the Alliance’s vulnerabilities in areas such as cybersecurity and maritime technology, and the importance of its cooperation with Asian partners in the Indo-Pacific, especially in light of the continuously rising aggressiveness from China and Russia.
The report, which explored further opportunities for partnership with Japan, Republic of Korea and Singapore, has been considered by the Science and Technology Committee was presented to the Committee at the Spring Session. You can watch my speech here.
I then presented this draft to the Science and Technology Committee at the 67th Annual Session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Lisbon on 8-10 October 2021. I'm proud that it was unanimously adopted as an official NATO document.
You can read the full report here, or see a copy at the bottom of this page.
The Asia-Pacific has become a strategic centre of gravity in the international system and is emerging as a global science and technology hub. As the pace of technological change intensifies, and with threats from Russia and China constantly looming, the Alliance must work closely with its Asian partners and strengthen its cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.
On behalf of the Science and Technology Committee, Nusrat has also drawn and presented a new resolution urging NATO nations to do more to draw China into arms control talks and pressure Russia to comply with its obligations while maintaining a credible Allied nuclear deterrent capable of adapting to the rapid development of new technologies. This resolution was voted on and unanimously adopted at the Plenary sitting of the Assembly which was attended by over 150 parliamentary delegates from NATO countries and opened by the Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg and President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Hon. Gerald E. Connolly.
2022 Report: STRENGTHENING ALLIANCE S&T RESILIENCE
In 2022, I was pleased to write another report for the Science and Technology Committee, focusing on ways in which the S7T resilience of the Alliance could be strengthened. The report acknowledges that innovation is key to NATO’s deterrence and defence and upholding a competitive pace in Research and Development (R&D) will be instrumental for NATO to dominate future warfighting domains.
The draft report identifies challenges to NATO’s innovation pipeline including threats by adversaries, particularly the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia and concludes that key objectives for the future are maintaining NATO’s technological edge by increasing investment and cooperation around critical technologies; enhancing and deepening NATO’s digitisation processes; and strengthening common understanding of ethical standards for these technologies.
The preliminary draft of the report, which was presented at the Spring Session in Lithuania in May 2022, is available here, and a copy is also attached at the bottom of this page.
