Lord West of Spithead
Main Page: Lord West of Spithead (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord West of Spithead's debates with the Cabinet Office
(1 year, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
We certainly have a co-ordination role, especially where risks affect more than one department. The work that we have done on the national security risk assessment outlines, each time that it is done, the biggest risks that we see. Having dealt a lot with buildings, I can understand exactly what my noble friend’s concern might be, particularly in relation to schools. We are looking at the risk assessment at the moment, and we will be publishing a new national risk register this year. I will take away the point about schools that she has so helpfully raised today.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that we should be more proactive in terms of the advice given to households for when there is a major crisis or emergency? We used to very clearly tell households about having batteries, torches, water purifiers and a wind-up radio and the frequencies to listen in on when these emergencies happened. We now have a website, but people are not told. Does the Minister believe that we should actually tell people what it would be useful to have? They do not have to have it but, my goodness me, if anything goes wrong, it is very useful to have those things.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
DLUHC is working with the local resilience forums to work out what we should be doing in the light of the latest developments. I agree that the focus on the website is not always great, particularly when websites go down during emergencies, which has been my own experience. I have dealt locally with people who deal with emergencies, notably on Covid. The voluntary effort that comes forth when emergencies take place and all the good things that are done are really impressive. We have to learn from that and put that into the system, as it were, for the future. I take the point about making sure that people know, by leaflets and so on as well as by websites, what they need to do in the case of an emergency.