Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent progress he has made on civil contingencies planning.

The Civil Contingencies Act places the primary responsibility for emergency planning on local responders working together. This activity at local level is constantly developing in the light of testing and exercising and actual events. It is supported at the national level by a range of activities including the production of the National Risk Assessment (NRA), a classified biennial assessment that identifies and prioritises the most significant emergencies the UK could face over the next five years, with the 2014 NRA having recently been made available to local responders; the cross-government National Resilience Capability Programme supported by the 2014 National Capability Survey, a voluntary biennial survey of local responders which provides data to government and enables self-improvement activity at the local tier; and the doctrine and training provided by the Emergency Planning College. In addition, the government’s annual review of UK resilience continues to consider the local, regional, and national level issues that pose the greatest risks to the UK.