Contribution
My Lords, on these Benches we very much welcome the publication of the Government’s resilience action plan. Of course, we recognise that we live in a period marked by heightened instability and insecurity. From the war in Ukraine to issues in the Middle East, climate-related issues and cyberattacks, the world is changing at an ever-greater speed. Obviously, these issues are not party political.
We acknowledge the steps outlined in the plan but call on the Government to go further in several critical areas to make the UK truly resilient. A national awareness campaign is essential to involve and empower our communities in helping to build our national resilience. The current approach of relying primarily on the GOV.UK Prepare website, while useful, may not reach all segments of society. We call for a broader public information campaign, drawing on the lessons from countries such as Sweden and Japan, where these issues are embedded in the education system and throughout the whole of society.
We also welcome the Government’s proposals to test a national alert system on Sunday 7 September, notifying 87 million people by text message. Text messages obviously have their limitations, so we call on the Government to look at a broader approach in this area. I know that everyone in the House will join me in sending our condolences to those in Texas and New Mexico for the terrible loss of life that they have suffered. In that instance, text messages were sent, but it was the middle of the night and people did not hear them. Can the Government consider installing sirens in areas where we know there are specific climate risks, such as floods and wildfires?
The Government have acknowledged the importance of dialogue on public resilience; in many other countries, that is a normal part of life. We welcome the commitment to expand the Prepare website and specific guidance for disproportionately affected individuals and sections of society. The plan must go further by comprehensively addressing the ever-growing impacts of climate change. We are seeing record-breaking wildfires and droughts, and I call on the Government to make better use of our weather-forecasting system to predict, and to inform us about, the risk of wildfires.
We welcome the commitment to flood defences, with £4.2 billion of funding, but we need to go further to make sure that we are climate resilient. We have not built a new reservoir in a long time, and last week Defra estimated that we will be 5 billion litres short of water by 2050. These are therefore urgent actions.
I turn to our critical national infrastructure. We have had recent, highlighted cyberattacks on many of our commercial businesses, but what if cyber attackers turn off the taps on our national water supply? Increased national threats require robust measures. We have discussed Heathrow this week, and we know that there were issues with identifying key CNI interrelationships and communications. The Government must commit to developing a cyber resilience index—we welcome that and the CNI Knowledge Base—to map these vulnerabilities. However, current CNI cyber resilience is not keeping pace with this rapidly evolving threat. We need to accelerate this work and to plug the gaps, to make sure that we are adequately prepared.
We welcome the legislation on countering ransomware and the Government’s proposed ban on the payment of that. That will help make sure that we are not a target.
Finally, the next pandemic obviously remains the number one threat and, again, is accelerated by the impacts of climate change. We welcome that the Government are preparing another exercise. We would like to see the full lessons learned from previous exercises and to make sure that more are learned from this one. We seek assurances that that exercise will test a full range of pandemic scenarios. We welcome the £1 billion investment in the new network of national biosecurity centres and the £15 million for the integrated security fund. Plugging these gaps in our biosecurity is obviously very welcome. We must also continue to support our universities, to make sure that we are preparing for the next pandemic.
The resilience action plan is a positive step. We need to be more proactive, more transparent and fully inclusive in our approach, to make sure that it is fully embedded in our society.