Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he plans to include economic impact in the next cross-departmental exercise on disaster management; and if he will make a statement.

As has been the case for some time, exercises are part of the UK approach to developing and validating resilience capabilities against a range of risks and impacts. It is a principle of the exercise programme that it achieves over time a balanced coverage of different risks and resilience capabilities, exercises the different phases of crisis and emergency management and recovery, and also reflects on lessons identified from previous crises to ensure they are learned for the future. Recovery management and associated considerations of economic impact will be included in the future exercising programme, and HM Treasury has been part of previous exercises.