Strengthening Community Resilience

Fred Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Member, but I am not going to use the occasion of talking about Be Ready to get into matters relating to cyber attribution, not least because those are complicated processes that need to be done in a certain way, as I know he understands. The House will be well-versed in the challenges that Jaguar Land Rover faced last year. There is a lot of work across Government to ensure that there is resilience among both the public and private sector organisations in the United Kingdom. I will have more to say about that with the launch of the national cyber action plan, which is coming later this year.

[Fred Thomas (Plymouth Moor View) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s Be Ready campaign, which I will champion in my patch in Plymouth. I thank the Minister for his continued endeavours, over the last several years, to knot together different bits of Government agenda and Departments to grow greater resilience. Can he assure the House that this will encompass AI and emerging technologies as well, and can he give us a sense of what new endeavours are being stood up, given the massive acceleration of the threat to our national resilience in that space?

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind words and his observation about the importance of drawing the campaign together from across Government. There needs to be a response that is balanced across Government Departments in order to ensure wider societal resilience. My hon. Friend is right to reference AI. I tend to focus on the significant challenges that AI brings, but there are also significant opportunities, including in this area. I work closely with the Minister for Artificial Intelligence in this endeavour, and I would be happy to discuss that with my hon. Friend further.