Member

The same applies to fire and rescue, to public health and to another area in which I am actively interested, which is the response that we have to the new threats to our national security, as set out clearly in the strategic defence review. Indeed, the strategic defence review talks about the need to have an enormous upgrade of local resilience, civil defence and local services working together to meet not only floods but foreign threats of one sort or another. As I have said on other occasions, I was always struck by the way in which the public health officer of the district council in Salisbury led the response to the Skripal poisoning at a point where national authorities were flummoxed as to what to do.