Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what role publicly accessible defibrillators play in his Department's work on community resilience and emergency preparedness.

My Department plays an important role in strengthening community resilience and emergency preparedness, supporting local authorities and Local Resilience Forums to plan for, respond to, and recover from emergencies.

It is the Government’s position that local communities are best placed to make decisions about public accessibility to defibrillators as they are a critical component of emergency preparedness and community resilience, they provide a vital time gap between a sudden medical emergency and the arrival of emergency medical services.