Strengthening Community Resilience

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, and I absolutely join him in praising Ben Brook and his team in Warwickshire; they did incredibly important and difficult work over the summer. My hon. Friend may have seen that last week the Prime Minister hosted our inaugural wildfire summit, at which he announced that military planes and helicopters will take to the skies to fight wildfires for the first time, as we prepare for future extreme weather driven by climate change. In his announcement, the Prime Minister paid tribute to those who put on a uniform and serve in our fire and rescue services for the incredibly important work that they do, including, clearly, in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

If rule No. 1, as far as resilience is concerned, is “be prepared”, does the Minister agree that rule No. 2 should be “have a reliable back-up system”? In that connection, does he share my concern that both in the field of telephony and in the field of banking, back-up systems do not seem to exist? In particular, were the Government consulted before British Telecom decided not only to move to an internet-based telephone system, but to dismantle the copper wire system, which could have given us useful resilience in an emergency?

[Dan Jarvis]

I broadly agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s rule No. 2, and he is right to stress the importance of having back-up systems. Essentially, a guiding principle in this campaign is making sure that households have their own back-up systems, but he is right to say that the Government need to think about the bigger picture, and to ensure resilience across our critical national infrastructure and in the areas of business and commerce to which he refers. I can give him an assurance that the Government work very closely with partners in the private sector, and various forums provide opportunities to engage on these matters. We take them very seriously, but I will look more carefully at the point that he has made.