Preparedness for National Emergencies
Debate between Alison Taylor and Graeme Downie(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Graeme Downie
I could not agree more. A lot of planning had gone into severe weather events in Fife over the years, but it had never been tested. A lot of it was out of date, and staff had moved on. For example, in High Valleyfield, a former coal-mining village, there was an almost 10-year-old resilience plan that said that the local community centre would be opened. The community knew about the plan, but the council had totally forgotten about it. They did not even know who had the keys for the community centre, so the community figured it out for themselves.
Broader lessons were also highlighted during that event, such as vulnerable customer data not being shared, confusion about support for care homes, a lack of generators, limited logistical capacity to deploy that provision, and access to temporary accommodation. Those are very practical failings, but they had very real consequences. The challenges we face now are broad and evolving—cyber-attacks, infrastructure sabotage, supply chain disruption, hybrid threats from hostile states, climate-related events and health and bio-security emergencies.
Alison Taylor (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)
This weekend, in my Paisley and Renfrewshire North constituency, there were flight delays due to fuel shortages, which were no doubt caused by events in the middle east. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is precisely the type of event we should be mitigating against, before it becomes a national emergency?
Graeme Downie
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct: we need to ensure that we are preparing for all these eventualities, regardless of what causes them—I believe that individual case was caused by one driver shortage. The need to plan and have contingencies in place is vital.