Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take to ensure that hazard data is publicly available and visible, in particular, data on (1) coastal erosion, (2) wind strength, (3) flood risks, and (4) the impact on the delivery of emergency services.

The Government has already taken a number of steps to ensure that hazard data is publicly available and visible.

The Environment Agency (EA) publishes data and maps on coastal erosion and flood risks. The EA also issues flood warnings and flood alerts as part of the Government Digital Service. These are publicly available. The EA also makes other environmental data openly available for download via the Defra Data Services Platform.

The Met Office provides forecasts of average wind speed and wind gust speed up to a week ahead. This is available on the Met Office’s public website and its app. When wind is deemed likely to pose a significant hazard, the Met Office issues warnings to public and emergency responders as part of the National Severe Weather Warning Service. Warnings are accessible from the Met Office through its app and also widely available via many other media channels.

More widely, the National Risk Register (NRR) is a public-facing document that delivers an overview of the key risks most likely to cause disruption in the UK and provides key guidance on individual preparedness during emergencies. The NRR is the declassified version of the National Security Risk Assessment, a cross-Government document that rigorously assesses key risks and their impacts on the UK, including extensive data on the disruption to emergency services. Though it cannot publish all data due to inherent sensitivities, the NRR identifies disruption to emergency services as a key consequence of many of the natural hazards and, where possible, links to key websites hosting hazard data and information on potential disruptions are provided. The current NRR can be found on the GOV.UK website and an updated version will be published in the first half of 2020.