Preparedness for National Emergencies

Debate between Polly Billington and James Frith

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr James Frith)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) on his work in this area and on securing this important debate.

In the interest of time, I intend to go through my pre-prepared remarks, but I have noted the themes that have been covered. I hope that colleagues will forgive me if I breeze through the themes and pick up any shortfall in subsequent correspondence, either through me or the Cabinet Office. We have heard excellent contributions on the impacts of hot and cold weather; covid and the need to learn lessons from the discoveries in the inquiry; the role of the Cabinet Office; the role that MPs lead locally; and education, skills and the role of devolved learning. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) that specifics on Cornwall shall not be ignored or bought off, and I look forward to a conversation with him on this in due course.

The Government’s first responsibility is to keep the country safe. Domestic resilience is a fundamental element of our national security strategy. The resilience action plan, published in July 2025, sets out the Government’s strategic vision for a stronger and more resilient UK and the steps being taken to deliver that, including building domestic resilience and supporting the whole of our society to build its own resilience. The Government utilise a range of tools as part of emergency response, including the National Situation Centre, which was established in 2021 and provides situational awareness for crisis response and the emergency alerts system, which is an essential capability to inform and warn the public in emergencies.

We are living through a rapidly changing global risk landscape, driven by geopolitical instability and rapid technological change, where the threats facing the UK are numerous, complex and exist on many fronts. Those risks may be non-malicious, such as accidents or natural hazards, or they may be malicious threats from malign actors who seek to harm us. Against that set of risks, it is more important than ever to make resilience front and centre of the UK’s approach to national security. Without security and resilience at home, we cannot deliver economic growth, peace and prosperity or any of the other Government missions to improve everyday life in Britain.

[Ms Billington]

Where does the energy crisis we are currently in with the situation in the strait of Hormuz sit on the national risk register?

[Mr Frith]

I will get on to preparedness and the impact of global events, including in the middle east, but I will come back to my hon. Friend on specifics. Responsibility for the overarching resilience system is led by the COBR Directorate in the Cabinet Office. Colleagues are rightly asking about the role the Cabinet Office takes in this work. It leads work on cross-cutting and high-priority risks, and in scenarios with major impacts, it uses the COBR mechanism to manage the Government’s response to major crises or events.

The UK Government define resilience as the ability to anticipate, assess, prevent, mitigate, respond to and recover from shocks. The resilience landscape is extensive and encompasses natural hazards, deliberate attacks, geopolitical instability and so on. The foundation of the Government’s approach is the national security risk assessment, which identifies and assesses the most serious acute risks facing the UK over a two to five-year time horizon. Under the lead Government Department model, each NSRA risk is owned by a lead Government Department, ensuring that those with the most relevant expertise, relationships and levers are responsible for putting the necessary planning response and recovery arrangements in place for each risk area.

The Government are also taking steps to enhance our readiness for the highest impact, whole-of-system crises called catastrophic risks, including by explicitly embedding the leadership role of the Cabinet Office in our central crisis management doctrine, the Amber Book. Alongside that, the Government have an extensive programme of assurance to understand how prepared we are to assess risks, including through a dedicated red teaming capability in the Government Office for Science and independent expert panel reviews.

Together, this approach ensures that the Government collectively understand and are prepared for the risks the UK faces overall, which relies on a collaborative approach and a shared ownership across Government Departments. The Government are committed to working in partnership with both the devolved Governments and the local tier to effectively plan for and respond to risks wherever they occur.

The Cabinet Office leads for Government on the overall response to severe weather. That is, in effect, a co-ordinating role, as individual Departments lead for the response, planning and longer term resilience of the sectors they represent. A key component is the severe weather resilience network, which is chaired by the COBR Directorate and comprises representatives across Government Departments.

On the matter of heat, periods of high temperature and heat waves are not a new phenomenon, and their risk—in terms of both impact and likelihood—is well documented in planning advice from the Government. There are tried and tested arrangements in place to warn of impending extreme temperatures, to review preparedness and, if needed, to co-ordinate the Government’s response to the impacts that they may have.

On the devolved authorities, it is vital that the four nations across the UK work together to keep communities safe, so that we can ensure that we are most effectively using the different levers that each Government hold. On the matter of local resilience forums, it is also essential that we strengthen resilience at the local level, and the Government are committed to the stronger LRF trailblazers programme, which provides selected areas with the opportunity to test approaches and strengthen leadership. I encourage local MPs to engage with that leadership.