Energy Grid Resilience

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes an important point. I certainly accept that pumped storage energy has a role to play. I shall make sure that Great British Energy is apprised of the views he has taken. He knows that we wish them to operate independently within the strategic framework, which we have debated extensively, but it is a very apposite point, which I will pass on to the chair.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, as was recognised in the other place, reports suggest that Programme Yarrow and Exercise Mighty Oak yielded useful insights and made a valuable contribution to our preparedness in the event of a disruption to the UK’s power supply. However, as proven by the previous Government’s failure to act on the findings of Operation Alice, resulting in a lack of planning for track and trace, border security and lockdowns consequent on the arrival of a pandemic, such diagnostic exercises are only as useful as subsequent actions taken to recommend identified shortfalls in resilience. With this precedent in mind, is my noble friend able to reassure your Lordships’ House that the findings of Programme Yarrow and Exercise Mighty Oak are under constant review and, importantly, that we continue to account for advances in capabilities among those strategic adversaries who might seek to target our critical energy infrastructure?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, Mighty Oak was a successful programme to test plans for full electricity restoration in the event of a national power outage. It was very successful and generated a number of learning points, and we now have a strong governance framework for oversight of the implementation of those recommendations. That work will also feed into the resilience review that my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster announced in July 2024.

I assure my noble friend that there is absolutely no complacency whatever, and nor is there any in relation to the energy security system and cybersecurity threats he referred to. It is certainly a key priority for the Government. We work closely with the National Protective Security Authority and the National Cyber Security Centre and we are certainly not complacent on this.