Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 26 May 2021 to Question 3121 on Emergencies: Mobile Phones, whether he has plans to assess the potential effect of the Emergency Alerts Service issued alert on telecommunication capacity in emergency areas as a result of any significant increase in access to the telecommunication demand following recipients' receipt of an alert, including a significant surge in (a) phone calls, (b) messages and (c) access to data and links provided through the alert.

Further to the Written Ministerial Statement published on 17 May 2021, we will consider how best to inform Hon. Members as part of the ongoing development of protocols for use.

To date, experience in other countries indicates that phone networks can handle a rise in calls made after an alert is sent. The number of phones which receive an alert has no impact on the Emergency Alert system - a number of countries conduct similar nationwide tests with no negative impact. Links embedded in alerts will always refer to the gov.uk website, which has been designed in a way to handle significantly higher rates of visits than normal websites and has been proven to be able to handle millions of visits in the seconds after announcements are made.