“The three countries that I mentioned to you have physical human capability, they have a big cyber presence, they’re able to deploy at scale,” Mr Hinds says.

“They can run, and do run, information ops and are involved in multiple different ways. I mean, it’s difficult to give you a comprehensive list because there are so many potential ways.”

Those threats, translated into layman’s terms, give you a sense of the scale: spies on the ground, cyber attacks, soldiers on standby, disinformation campaigns.

Mr Hinds uses the list to underscore the need to update legislation that deals with foreign spies, which is in some places more than a century old.

The Government’s proposed new counter state threats law would create a new “Foreign Influence Registration Scheme” to help combat foreign espionage.

Mr Hinds adds that North Korea is a fourth hostile state on the radar.

And yet the UK’s relationship with these hostile states is complicated, not least with China, which is set to rival America as the dominant global power of the 21st century.

The Prime Minister has outlined a two-pronged strategy: Continuing to engage and trade with China, while also calling out human rights abuses and limiting its access to sensitive UK industries.

So does Mr Hinds think Chinese state-owned companies should not build UK nuclear power plants? He indicates support, while not doing so explicitly. “These are all things where we have to make sure that we have adequate defences and protections in place for our security,” he says, while adding it is “difficult to codify that exactly into rules of thumb”.

Right-wing terrorism and the Prevent scheme

Discussing the nature of the terror threat, Mr Hinds makes clear that he has concerns that Right-wing extremism in Britain is on the arise.

“There has been a growth in extreme Right-wing terrorism,” he says. “More young people coming on to the Prevent program have an extreme Right-wing mindset.”

But he goes on: “Islamist extremism terrorism, though, remains a potent threat. And we also have quite a few people who you might describe as having a sort of mixed or unclear or unstable mindset.

“Sometimes [they are] looking at flirting with different ideologies, different groups, sometimes apparently mutually exclusive – very, very different types of ideology.”

The Prevent program, which is aimed at stopping mainly young people becoming radicalised, has been criticised in some quarters. It is under a government-ordered review, with calls for everything from significant refinements to a total overhaul of approach being heard in the public debate.

But Mr Hinds defends its achievements. “What people don’t see and can’t see is all the success stories of Prevent,” he says, noting the “big scale” operation it has become.

Before the interview ends, there is time for one more topic: Afghanistan. The situation in Kabul has largely dropped off the UK front pages since the West’s troubled withdrawal in August.

Yet with the Taliban now back in charge two decades after being forced out after the September 2001 attacks, what risk to the UK now exists?

“We have to see obviously what happens in Afghanistan in the future,” Mr Hinds says, offering a final note of caution.

“Clearly, it has been a source of huge, huge risk in the past and we need to be vigilant about that into the future.”