Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what steps her Department is taking to ensure that people living in phone signal black spots can receive emergency alerts.

The government understands that individuals may be worried if they did not receive the recent Emergency Alert on 14th August and wants to reassure the public that if they are unable to receive Emergency Alerts due to handset incompatibility or living in a signal black spot, they will still be alerted by other existing mechanisms. For example, by text or phone messages, social and broadcast media. The Emergency Alerts capability is intended to complement rather than supersede other tools available to responders to communicate with the public in emergency situations.

Each region across the UK also has a group in place, whose role it is to warn, inform and advise the public in the event of an emergency. These are called Local Resilience Forums in England and Wales, Regional Resilience Partnerships in Scotland, and Emergency Preparedness Groups in Northern Ireland. These forums are made up of local authorities, the emergency services, the NHS & health bodies and environment-related government agencies.

The government’s ambition is for all populated areas to have access to higher quality standalone 5G by 2030. This includes rural areas. The Government continues to work closely with the industry to ensure this is delivered, including through the identification and removal of barriers to deployment. Alongside the commercial rollout of mobile networks, the Government is delivering the Shared Rural Network, which is bringing new 4G coverage to rural and hard to reach communities across the UK through the upgrade of existing infrastructure and the delivery of new sites.