Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of resilience plans for emergency services during a (a) widespread internet outage and (b) cyber attack.

The Government and Ofcom, the telecommunications regulator, work closely with the telecoms sector to assess and promote the resilience of the sector and to identify and prevent the risk of a wide range of compromises. The Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021 established a new telecoms security framework to improve the security and resilience of public telecoms networks and services. The framework includes New Electronic Communications (Security Measures) Regulations 2022 and an accompanying Telecommunications Security Code of Practice. These are intended to address risks to the security of the UK’s public telecoms networks and services, including cyber attacks and outages.

DCMS does not have responsibility for the provision of emergency services themselves. It is for the relevant Emergency Authority (EA) to make an assessment of their resilience plans and ensure they have comprehensive business continuity plans and for the relevant inspectorate and lead government department to review the efficacy of these plans.