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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what measures her Department has in place to run critical services in the event of a major internet outage.

The Government has a robust set of policies in place to ensure there are well-defined and tested incident management processes in place, and to ensure continuity of essential functions in the event of system or service failure. In line with these policies, these arrangements are regularly tested to maintain organisational resilience and ensure readiness to manage significant disruptions effectively.

Defra undergoes Cyber Assessment Framework assessments annually and uses the results of these assessments and lessons learned from exercises/testing to help minimise the likelihood, impact, or time and cost of recovery of critical services.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology will publish the Government Cyber Action Plan this Winter, which will set out a clear approach for the Government and the Wider Public Sector to manage cyber security and resilience incidents.