Government Resilience Action Plan

Earl Russell Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving us the opportunity to scrutinise the Government’s resilience action plan. There is much to be welcomed in this plan. In an increasingly unstable period, both domestically and abroad, it is vital that we invest in our defence and security as well as our national resilience.

The looming background to this plan is of course our national experience of the Covid pandemic, which we know the UK was ill prepared for. The pandemic preparations we had made were for influenza and we did not have the structures in place to respond to a coronavirus. Access to the right data was also a particular challenge for decision-makers. Professor Sir Ian Diamond confirmed to the Covid inquiry that

“no formal structures existed for the ONS to … contribute to civil emergency preparedness”,

beyond “ad hoc commissions”.

The Covid inquiry highlighted the difficulties that arose from different datasets being used in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Even within government there are problems, as government departments do not share consistent data freely. Can the Minister confirm that the Government are actively looking at these issues to standardise data across the United Kingdom?

During the pandemic, we also learned where the weaknesses were in our civil contingencies regime. The disparate responsibilities across government were one of the key challenges. We wasted no time learning the lessons from Covid so that they could be applied to pandemic preparedness, as well as in other areas. We established the national Covid inquiry and founded the UK Health Security Agency, and the Government are right to build on this work.

In addition to the weaknesses exposed during Covid, the pandemic demonstrated national strengths. At what was a very difficult time, the British people stepped up as volunteers up and down the country to do their bit, supporting neighbours with emergency supplies, volunteering at vaccine rollout centres, supporting one of the fastest vaccine rollouts in the world and enabling us to come out of lockdown sooner as we kick-started the pandemic recovery in our schools, businesses and hospitals.

The Government are right to include the role of the British people in resilience. We learned from Covid what a force of nature the British people are, and our national resilience is all the stronger if we can harness the voluntary will of our fellow countrymen. In the other place, my honourable friend Alex Burghart asked about proper communication—this will be vital. Can the Minister confirm what practical steps the Government will take in this regard?

We also welcome the focus on flood defence. In recent years we have seen serious weather events that have threatened homes, livelihoods and our food security. We must have the right measures in place to support communities affected by flooding and protect them from future flooding events. Can the Minister confirm what consideration is being given to the risk of flooding in our planning system to protect the homes of the future?

At the most local level, our flood response often relies on our rural communities stepping up to help their neighbours; this often means our farmers. Can the Minister please explain what steps Ministers are taking to rebuild trust with the British farmers after their trust in government was shattered by the cruel family farm tax?

There are a number of issues missing from the resilience plan. One of the major challenges to domestic stability is economic instability. The Government’s fiscal policies have left us with the third-highest borrowing cost of any advanced economy after New Zealand and Iceland, falling employment and higher costs of doing business. Meanwhile, the Government are empowering unions, reversing the constructive reforms of the Trade Union Act 2016 and making it easier for them to take destructive strike action through the Employment Rights Bill.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was unable to say whether the Government are preparing contingency plans for a general strike, or strikes in general, as part of the resilience action plan. Can the Minister now confirm whether preparations for a general strike will form part of the resilience action plan?

The Government have been clear in the resilience action plan that they will continue with the lead government department system for preparedness and that the Cabinet Office will retain a central but supporting role in our resilience planning. There are inherent problems with this approach. We talked about the proliferation of responsibilities, leading to an uneven response and nobody taking charge in times of crisis. This is obviously compounded by the problems of sharing consistent data across government.

I think there is a gap between the Government’s approach and the recommendations of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, in module 1. She said:

“The UK government should … abolish the lead government department model for whole-system civil emergency preparedness and resilience”,


yet the Government’s plan implies that they will continue with this lead government department model. Will the Minister confirm that this plan does not abolish the lead government department model for whole-system emergencies? Have the Government therefore rejected the recommendation by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, and how can the Minister explain the gap? Finally, can she confirm that somebody will be responsible and accountable to ensure that the lead government department plans are up to date and reflect the latest threats? What opportunity will there be for Parliament to scrutinise the work of both the Cabinet Office and the government departments’ work on preparedness?

I have a few further questions for the Minister. Which types of pandemic will Exercise Pegasus prepare for? We know that pandemic preparedness before Covid was focused on the wrong kind of pandemic. How will Ministers ensure that Exercise Pegasus covers all the scenarios it should, and will a list of the types of the pandemics we have prepared for be made available to Parliament? Finally, what steps are the Government taking to horizon-scan for biosecurity threats that may be developed by hostile foreign state actors? I appreciate that there are a lot of questions there and look forward to the response from the Minister.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, on these Benches we very much welcome the publication of the Government’s resilience action plan. Of course, we recognise that we live in a period marked by heightened instability and insecurity. From the war in Ukraine to issues in the Middle East, climate-related issues and cyberattacks, the world is changing at an ever-greater speed. Obviously, these issues are not party political.

We acknowledge the steps outlined in the plan but call on the Government to go further in several critical areas to make the UK truly resilient. A national awareness campaign is essential to involve and empower our communities in helping to build our national resilience. The current approach of relying primarily on the GOV.UK Prepare website, while useful, may not reach all segments of society. We call for a broader public information campaign, drawing on the lessons from countries such as Sweden and Japan, where these issues are embedded in the education system and throughout the whole of society.

We also welcome the Government’s proposals to test a national alert system on Sunday 7 September, notifying 87 million people by text message. Text messages obviously have their limitations, so we call on the Government to look at a broader approach in this area. I know that everyone in the House will join me in sending our condolences to those in Texas and New Mexico for the terrible loss of life that they have suffered. In that instance, text messages were sent, but it was the middle of the night and people did not hear them. Can the Government consider installing sirens in areas where we know there are specific climate risks, such as floods and wildfires?

The Government have acknowledged the importance of dialogue on public resilience; in many other countries, that is a normal part of life. We welcome the commitment to expand the Prepare website and specific guidance for disproportionately affected individuals and sections of society. The plan must go further by comprehensively addressing the ever-growing impacts of climate change. We are seeing record-breaking wildfires and droughts, and I call on the Government to make better use of our weather-forecasting system to predict, and to inform us about, the risk of wildfires.

We welcome the commitment to flood defences, with £4.2 billion of funding, but we need to go further to make sure that we are climate resilient. We have not built a new reservoir in a long time, and last week Defra estimated that we will be 5 billion litres short of water by 2050. These are therefore urgent actions.

I turn to our critical national infrastructure. We have had recent, highlighted cyberattacks on many of our commercial businesses, but what if cyber attackers turn off the taps on our national water supply? Increased national threats require robust measures. We have discussed Heathrow this week, and we know that there were issues with identifying key CNI interrelationships and communications. The Government must commit to developing a cyber resilience index—we welcome that and the CNI Knowledge Base—to map these vulnerabilities. However, current CNI cyber resilience is not keeping pace with this rapidly evolving threat. We need to accelerate this work and to plug the gaps, to make sure that we are adequately prepared.

We welcome the legislation on countering ransomware and the Government’s proposed ban on the payment of that. That will help make sure that we are not a target.

Finally, the next pandemic obviously remains the number one threat and, again, is accelerated by the impacts of climate change. We welcome that the Government are preparing another exercise. We would like to see the full lessons learned from previous exercises and to make sure that more are learned from this one. We seek assurances that that exercise will test a full range of pandemic scenarios. We welcome the £1 billion investment in the new network of national biosecurity centres and the £15 million for the integrated security fund. Plugging these gaps in our biosecurity is obviously very welcome. We must also continue to support our universities, to make sure that we are preparing for the next pandemic.

The resilience action plan is a positive step. We need to be more proactive, more transparent and fully inclusive in our approach, to make sure that it is fully embedded in our society.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and noble Earl, Lord Russell, for their comments and broad support for the Government’s actions.

Before I continue, I want to pay tribute to the work of many other noble Lords across the House. Specifically, I thank my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey for his engagement throughout the Government’s review of resilience, as a critical friend and my personal mentor—not that I intend to blame him for anything I get wrong today, but I might give that a go. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, and my noble friends Lord Boateng and Lord Browne, who have acted as critical friends throughout this process.

The resilience action plan highlights the fact that we are living through a period of profound change, and our national resilience is being tested in ways that it has not before. In the last decade, we have had to manage the domestic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, the illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Grenfell Tower disaster, heatwaves, increasingly serious flooding and, this year alone, the impact of cybergangs targeting UK businesses. It is more important than ever that we have a clear plan to increase the resilience of the UK. The resilience action plan is this Government’s strategic approach to achieving this goal.

Our action plan has three objectives: to evaluate continuously the UK’s resilience, using data mapping to identify vulnerabilities and target interventions effectively; to enable society-wide action by embedding resilience in daily life in practical ways, such as those touched on by the noble Earl; and to strengthen public sector resilience, by ensuring that front-line workers and public services are well co-ordinated and empowered across all levels, from Government Ministers to first responders. The Government cannot stop every risk from materialising, but it is our first responsibility to keep the public safe. The resilience action plan takes an all-hazards approach, which seeks to improve the general resilience of the nation, similar to the approach adopted in the strategic defence review.

On how the action plan will bring together the range of policies that contribute to realising these objectives, £4.2 billion of funding has been earmarked for new flood defences to keep communities safe across the UK. We are investing £370 million to better secure the UK’s telecommunications networks, through research and investment in technology and infrastructure. We have launched a dedicated UK Resilience Academy, which will train up to 4,000 resilience experts every year across the whole of society. We are co-ordinating the largest ever national pandemic exercise later this year, which will test the UK’s readiness for future pandemics.

We learned from previous tragedies, including Grenfell and Covid, that, while emergencies have an impact on everyone, they all too often hit the most vulnerable in our society the most. Therefore, we have also launched a risk vulnerability tool, which maps the particular challenges that different crises may create for vulnerable people, to enhance the Government’s response both before and during a crisis. We are embracing the data.

I turn to some of the specific questions raised by the Front Benches opposite. We are going even further than just the action plan. Our update to the biological security strategy set out concrete measures, including, as noble Lords have referenced, the second nationwide test of the UK emergency alert system. It will take place on the honourable Alex Burghart’s birthday—it is his birthday present—on Sunday 7 September at 3 pm, with a notification going out to 87 million mobile phones at once. We will work with all stakeholders, including domestic violence charities, in the run-up to the national alert to ensure that the public have as much warning as possible.

It will also give us an opportunity to engage directly with the general public in communicating the importance of resilience. It is one of the tools that we will use to provide broader communications around resilience. Many of us have spent too many hours writing political campaign material, knowing that it typically goes from the front door to the bin in the kitchen, so we have to make sure that we have a variety of tools available when we communicate. While paper is always my back-up, especially where I live, we also need to have the right materials available online—as well as by using radio and television—to make sure that people have access to the right comms. The national alert gives us a wider opportunity to do that, and we will also be able to alert schools. As 87 million people will receive the alert, it is an opportunity to make sure that this approach is working.

Alongside this, we are pushing ahead with activity to promote the Government’s Prepare website to help individuals, households and communities understand how they can be ready for a range of different emergencies. All these actions are about making sure that the foundations are fixed.

Noble Lords have touched on a variety of issues, so I will respond directly to them. I am very aware that the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, asked me a series of questions, so I may have to read Hansard, in case I did not quite catch them all. She raised an important point about how we are actively seeking to standardise data. The National Situation Centre is now a co-ordination point and ensures best practice for data use. I was there only this week; it is an extraordinary tool and is utilising data. We are about to sign an MoU with the devolved Governments, to make sure that data is used between the National Situation Centre and the devolved Governments in this area, which will help us to standardise data.

The noble Baroness did something that I should have started with, which is to praise the role of people in the delivery of our resilience. We all saw extraordinary actions during Covid, as people came together to look after communities. In my own area, it meant that hundreds of thousands of meals were delivered to children who qualified for free school meals. It is extraordinary what we can do when we come together.

I have already talked about proper communication and practical steps. With regard to flooding—I do have a piece of paper somewhere about flooding: there you go, it is like magic—the Government inherited flood defences in their worst state on record since June 2009-10. We are investing record levels in flood prevention and protection. Over the next 10 years, we are committed to £7.9 billion of capital investment for flood defences. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ floods resilience task force is a new approach, preparing for flooding by bringing together representations from national, regional and local government, devolved Governments, the emergency services, businesses and environmental interest groups. This should help the planning system.

The noble Baroness is definitely focused on agriculture today, and I give her points for it. Obviously, we have a multifaceted relationship with those in the agricultural community and will continue to work with them in this area, as we always have. She also touches on the issue of economic security; the noble Baroness is very aware that this Government’s driving mission is to increase economic growth in a way that the last Government simply failed to do. We will do so, so we have enough money to fulfil the commitments we are making.

I declare that I am a former trade union official. In my experience, I do not believe that the unions need empowering; they are doing all right by themselves. What we are doing is making sure that the general public and workers have appropriate rights in the workforce, and I look forward to discussing that with noble Lords next week, when we have the Employment Rights Bill before your Lordships’ House.

There are many other points, but I am aware of the time. I do want to touch on cyber, because it is so incredibly important. Obviously, we will be bringing forward the cyber resilience Bill in due course, when legislative time allows. We need to make sure we are ahead of the threats that are coming. Everything about the resilience action plan is to strengthen our foundations because, candidly, as noble Lords will be aware, the sheer range of threats we currently face means we do not know what will happen next. I wish we did, but it is about making sure we are prepared for whatever comes.

I will look at all the questions that have been raised and, if I have missed any, I will write.