Strengthening Community Resilience
Debate between Charlie Dewhirst and Dan Jarvis(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, and join him in sending my condolences to the families of the two men who lost their lives in the storms over the weekend.
We welcome measures to address the resilience gap—a process that started under the previous Government, as the Minister said. I am a little surprised that the Housing Secretary’s suggestion of stockpiling sauvignon blanc has not been taken on board by the Minister, but it is absolutely right that the Government tell people to be prepared for adversity. However, I have a number of questions that I hope he will be able to address this afternoon. First, the Government’s Be Ready campaign website lists 18 hazards, ranging from terrorism and adverse weather to animal and plant health and fires in the home. Which of those 18 hazards do the Government consider to be the highest risk, and have there been any recent changes to risk assessments that led to the launch of this campaign?
Secondly, how do the Government plan to reach people who are digitally excluded, and will they be distributing printed resources? Not only are such resources vital for those who are digitally excluded, they could become a lifeline for anyone who is unable to access the internet at the time of an incident. In his statement, the Minister rightly pointed out that only 13% of people in the UK feel they are prepared for an emergency. This is in stark contrast to other countries, such as Spain, where I believe the figure is just below 70%. Can the Minister tell the House whether he has a specific take-up figure that he would like to achieve by the end of the Be Ready campaign?
I now come to the issue of costs. We all know that times are tough for people right across the country, so how much do the Government expect this preparedness to cost the average family, and how much do they expect to spend on this campaign over the next three years? It has been reported that since the Government announced the campaign last week, supermarkets have seen water and baked beans sell out, as well as a run on wind-up radios and torches. Did the Government communicate with major supermarkets and other retailers to prepare them before they made this announcement, or was it just dropped on them?
With reference to emergency response coverage, the most important thing across the nation is that we have a joined-up approach, so that nobody is left behind. We cannot have a postcode lottery of an emergency response system, so can the Minister tell the House how he is working with the devolved Administrations across the four nations, and how he is working with local authorities? The Government became familiar with the emergency alert system over the summer after using it to warn people about disposable barbecues. Has the Minister reflected since then and made any assessment of the threshold for future use of the system, and of how many people may have turned off their emergency alert capability following its use in August?
Next, I would like to address vulnerable people, and what consideration the Government have made of them in the Be Ready campaign. How will the Government ensure that our vulnerable, our elderly, people with illness, parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities, and others are effectively communicated with and supported in a time of emergency? This cannot vary from place to place.
Turning to national security, the former Defence Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), said this week that the cyber-attack that caused £2.1 billion of damage to Jaguar Land Rover last year was a state-sponsored attack. First, Jaguar Land Rover deserves to know whether it was a state-sponsored attack, and I hope the Government have told it. Secondly, can the Government say whether there needs to be more awareness among businesses that they are at risk from these types of attacks, and what more are they doing to support our critical national infrastructure with cyber-resilience and cyber-security?
The Government have claimed that defence spending will reach 2.7% of GDP by the end of 2028. Considering the valuable work of our intelligence services, can the Minister confirm that the entire single intelligence account is included in that figure, and can he explain how this fits with the NATO definition of defence spending? Finally, the Government have refused to confirm whether improving broadband infrastructure is included in the classification of critical infrastructure for the purposes of reporting against the additional 1.5% NATO commitment. Can the Minister clarify today that improving broadband infrastructure does not contribute to the NATO spending commitment?
In conclusion, we welcome the continuation of the previous Conservative Government’s efforts to address the resilience gap. We will support the Government where appropriate, and look forward to scrutinising the Be Ready campaign as it progresses.
Dan Jarvis
I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Member for the reasonable way in which he has presented quite a long list of questions today. I will endeavour to work my way through them in as systematic a way as I can; if I miss anything, though, I am happy to write to him or meet him to discuss this matter, not least because it is my intention that the work we do to make our nation more resilient is a shared endeavour across this House. I do not believe that it should be a matter of political disagreement. I think the measures we have brought forward are reasonable and common-sense ones, and I hope we can work together across this place to ensure our communities—our constituencies—are as resilient as possible, not least because that activity will contribute to our overall national resilience and national security as part of this work.
The hon. Member asked an entirely reasonable set of questions, which I will run through as best I can. At the outset, he asked whether the campaign is in response to a range of different risks. He will know about the Government’s risk register, and will have heard me say earlier that this campaign is not a consequence of any specific piece of intelligence or born out of any specific concern. He and the House will understand that at any one time, the Government are tracking a range of different threats to the United Kingdom, and this campaign will contribute—I think effectively—to our overall resilience. I think he will also understand that there is a lot of merit in making sure we prepare households and communities at a local level for the kinds of everyday emergencies we have spoken about today, and that there is a broader and wider utility in that preparedness when it comes to other risks that have been debated recently, even those that are much less likely.
The hon. Member made an important point about inclusion, particularly of people who are not online, and he is right to raise those concerns. Over the coming weeks and months, he will see a range of different activities under way to ensure we are able to reach every corner of the United Kingdom, including those who are offline. I mentioned the radio, but I am happy to think more about how we can ensure that nobody is unable to access this important messaging.
The hon. Member asked about the take-up figure. I said in my statement that I expected the campaign to run for three years, but I think it likely that messages of the kind that we are discussing today will continue in the longer term. The work that we are now launching in the United Kingdom is, in fact, done routinely in other parts of the world, and particularly with partners in Europe and Scandinavia. Such messaging is routine in most countries, and I anticipate that this sort of activity will take on a certain normality in the future.
The hon. Member asked me about the alert. The decision to launch any alert is taken very carefully, and we weigh up a range of different risks. Whenever an alert is launched there is an extensive process of review. We are working through the detail of the most recent alert, and I shall be happy to discuss that further with the hon. Member and with other Members.
The hon. Member was right to raise the need to ensure that the vulnerable and the elderly are properly accommodated in the context of the campaign. We have worked very hard with a range of stakeholder organisations, including local resilience forums, the voluntary sector and the British Red Cross, to ensure that vulnerable people are properly catered for. The hon. Member will have heard what I said earlier about the importance that we attach to people signing up for the priority services register. There is a job of work that I hope every Member will do, namely looking into their own communities and encouraging their constituents to engage with this messaging and specifically, when they think they might be eligible—the criterion is fairly broad—to sign up for the register.
The hon. Member rightly mentioned cost of living pressures. I hope that he heard what I said about there not being a requirement for households to assemble all these items in one go: this is the kind of thing that people can do progressively, perhaps adding a single item to each weekly shop. Although many households will probably already have many of the items on the checklist, I hope that, through the process of this campaign, they will think about how they can draw those individual items together and be better prepared should an everyday emergency strike. We are acutely conscious of the cost of living pressures on households throughout the country, and we are determined to ensure that the campaign is carried out in a value-for-money way. The actual costs are relatively low, and we think that it is very good value for money, but we will ensure that that is the case.
The hon. Member asked about cyber, an issue that I take extremely seriously, both in my remit as a Cabinet Office Minister and through the Home Office. As the hon. Member will know, earlier this year the Government published a landmark cyber action plan to overhaul public sector digital security. The next stage of that plan is the introduction of the national cyber action plan, which will drive up standards in businesses and the wider society. A great deal of activity is under way across Government, and I hope we can all get behind that collectively.
Finally, the hon. Member mentioned defence spending. I genuinely welcome this debate, because I think it important for our national security. As the Prime Minister has said, the Government’s commitment to the defence of our country is unwavering. We have already delivered the biggest sustained boost to defence spending since the cold war, committing nearly £300 billion over the next four years. We will honour our NATO commitment to spend 3.5% of GDP on defence by 2035, and will specify a target date for 3% in the spending review. We are also delivering on our commitment to NATO by spending 1.5% of our GDP on wider security and resilience. That includes protecting our critical national infrastructure, defending our networks, ensuring our civil preparedness and resilience, and unleashing innovation and strengthening our defence industrial base.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Charlie Dewhirst and Dan Jarvis(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Dan Jarvis
I am genuinely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising this important issue again. He is right: fraud accounts for over 43% of all offences recorded by the crime survey for England and Wales. Tackling fraud relies on collaboration between law enforcement, industry and Government Departments. That means everyone playing their part, and we continue to urge the tech and social media companies to take stronger action to stop consumers being defrauded when using their sites.
Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)