Preparedness for National Emergencies

Caroline Voaden Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Graeme Downie]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We have discussed that issue many times, both in the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee and outside. The need for collective action is required and we must make sure the public are a key part of that. They must understand why certain crises are happening. Sometimes they are outwith Government control; we are affected by what happens in the world and we must make sure that we are bringing them along in that conversation.

[Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)]

Nowhere is it more apparent what happens when a community is not prepared than in South Devon. We have a major A road that washed into the sea in February and we now have communities that are completely severed: bus services are not running, school buses are not running, and people cannot get to healthcare appointments or to their jobs. It is a complete nightmare.

The community knew that that might happen at some point, but for many years the local authority refused to address the issue and do the preparation required to make sure that the inland road network was sufficient to compensate for the main road that has now washed into the sea. It is an absolute disaster. If we had been better prepared, our communities would not be in the situation they now find themselves in.

[Graeme Downie]

I am sorry to hear that the hon. Lady’s constituents are having that issue; that is terrible. Again, it is why we must make sure that we are preparing for all different types of resilience. That must be at the forefront of the minds of the public and different levels of Government when we consider the different challenges that we face, whether internal or external and whether beyond our control or very much within our control, as it sounds that example was.

The national security strategy tells us that the assumptions underpinning UK security are being challenged to an unprecedented degree. We must not hide from the public the scale or nature of the threats that we face. We must trust people with information that we might previously have chosen to withhold and we should worry less about causing alarm and more about appearing to hide the truth. If the public do not feel and understand that, they will not support and force us to carry out the investment and actions required to address the challenges. Any Government who have not undertaken that work with the public at its heart will have very large political price to pay.

I have not even had time in this speech to touch on the threat to the public and the need to prepare for ongoing misinformation. If we lose trust with the public, resilience will be weakened.

Preparedness for national emergencies is not a single policy or programme; it is a system—more than that, it is a mindset. When the next crisis comes, and it will, the question will not be whether plans existed on paper. It will be whether, on the ground, the Government did enough to prepare and make sure that our communities were ready.