I am reassured. I declare a certain interest: I have a number of relatives in aspects of scientific research. My son tells me that he is a systems biologist, but I note that engineering biology and synthetic biology are defined in the NSI Act among the strategic areas, and they are in some ways very similar to systems biology. So that is part of my active interest in this area. I am well aware that, in our universities, we have a large number of multinational teams working on the cutting edge of advanced science in a number of different areas. That is part of the grey zone with which we are now dealing and which it is extremely difficult to come to grips with.
I will speak to my Amendment 11, which is very much a probing amendment, raising the question of how we handle the very substantial number of dual nationals we have in this country, both living here and living in other countries—in some cases, they are long-term residents in other countries. If we are moving towards an increasingly unfriendly and difficult international environment, as we are already seeing, dual nationals will come under increasing pressure,
not just from what we may do, mildly, within the Bill but from the other countries of which they have citizenship and with which they have connections. We have seen the pressures that the Iranian Government are willing to push on to the family members of dual nationals or single British citizens living in this country, and we have seen the same in China. Therefore, there are a number of questions about whether we need to take on board the presence and complexity of our dual-national citizens as part of the complications of the Bill.
I am also conscious that, unless the Minister can reassure me, we have no idea how many dual nationals we have, who they are or where they are. All the questions I posed during the passage of the Elections Act about our overseas citizens, and potential overseas electors, have told me that we have very little idea of who and where they are. I raise this because I simply do not know whether there is a problem or how serious it may be. But it seems to me that we should pay more attention to a world in which some hostile foreign states will do their best to bring all the pressures that they can on British citizens with origins in their country or dual citizens.