Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what plans there are for civilian defence in the event of a nuclear attack.

Nuclear rhetoric from Russia is unhelpful. It is designed to deter and distract from its barbaric invasion of Ukraine. The Government continues to call on Russia to de-escalate, starting by ceasing its assault on Ukraine and withdrawing its forces.

The UK has well developed contingency plans to respond to a wide range of eventualities. The plans and supporting arrangements have been developed, refined and tested over many years. The UK’s plans are risk-based and built on the principle of generic capabilities which are able to respond to a wide range of events, augmented by specific, niche capabilities, where needed and warranted by the risk. The scale of these capabilities is driven by classified planning assumptions derived from the UK’s National Security Risk Assessment. A public facing version is published in the form of the National Risk Register.