Emergency Alert Service

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My noble friend rightly highlights the danger of heat in terms of its potential impact on the public. As he and other noble Lords will be aware, the summer of 2022 saw the highest ever recorded temperature in the UK. The capability was not in use at the time, but this is an example of the type of event in which an alert would be considered. More recent summers have been somewhat milder, but this is the type of incident that would be appropriate for the use of emergency alerts.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that one way to ensure that the systems are effective would be to have a proper national resilience command and control structure that carried out policy development, gaming, resilience and stress testing, and ensured not only that the technical systems work but that the personnel involved in them were familiar with all the challenges that would face them in the real event?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

Some of the issues the noble and gallant Lord refers to were highlighted by the Covid inquiry module 1. The Government have committed to respond to that within six months and I anticipate that the very valid point he makes will be addressed in that response.