Today, Monday 4th December 2023, the Deputy Prime Minister
delivered the first annual
statement on risk and resilience to Parliament, setting out our
achievements over the past 12 months, and meeting a key
commitment in the government’s UK Resilience Framework published
in 2022.
As the Cabinet Minister with responsibility for risk and
resilience, the Deputy Prime Minister has overseen significant
progress in national resilience since the publication of the
Framework and implementing changes that will make the UK
significantly more resilient as a result.
This includes the creation of a new dedicated sub-committee of
the National Security Council, the publication of the most
transparent National Risk Register ever, and an update to the
Lead Government Department (LGD) emergency management
responsibilities.
In his statement to Parliament, the Deputy Prime Minister set out
the challenges the UK faces as a result of today’s complex risk
landscape. He made clear the risks to our country that are
evolving faster than ever. From Russia’s ongoing invasion of
Ukraine, to increased cyber-attacks, to the impacts of the
COVID-19 pandemic, to early examples of the misuse of artificial
intelligence in increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks
- alongside extreme weather conditions, creating long-term,
wide-ranging impacts.
The Deputy Prime Minister unveiled the remit and focus of the UK
Resilience Academy, which will for the first time provide
learning leadership across the faculties of resilience; from
emergency planning, crisis management and organisational
resilience, enhanced by a new focus on strategic prevention,
personal resilience capabilities and citizen preparedness.
The Resilience Academy will be open to anyone working on
resilience at a national or local level. It will include training
and a centre of excellence for exercising to make sure groups and
organisations across society are able to contribute to the
nation's resilience. The vision is for the Academy to be both a
physical and virtual campus, with the resilience community being
consulted to understand their specific learning delivery
requirements.
The Deputy Prime Minister will also be launching a unified
government ‘Resilience Website’, which will be informed by
a public perceptions survey, allowing individuals access to
information that will enable them to understand their own role in
the UK’s resilience. Along with the Academy, these resources will
support building societal resilience, helping households become
more resilient themselves and better enabling the government to
focus help on those who are most vulnerable and most in need of
help when an emergency hits.
The 'Resilience Website' will also include the launch of a new
Volunteering Hub, making it easier to help in emergencies and for
Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) to draw on those volunteers by
creating a single home for resilience-related volunteering
opportunities.
Deputy Prime Minister, :
"Preventing risks from becoming a reality is our
priority, and since the Covid pandemic, through Russia's invasion
of Ukraine, we have not stood still.
From strengthening our structures across government
and nationwide, spanning all agencies dealing with risk, from
biosecurity to local resilience, we have developed a unified plan
to help keep us safe."
Alongside these new measures, the government announced at the
Autumn Statement that it will consult on strengthening the
economic regulation of the energy, water and telecoms sectors -
with proposals that could include a universal, tell-us-once,
priority register so that vulnerable people can be confident
their status is recognised by all their utilities providers and
support will be provided when needed. This is only one of the
steps we are taking to support vulnerable people - the government
has also taken forward work to offer better guidance and support
to Local Resilience Forums to support them working with
vulnerable persons in their communities, so they can get the
support they need.
To support those resilience risks posed to economic and
fiscal outlook, a shared understanding of risk is essential to
improving our preparedness and guiding investment. That is why
the Government has been more transparent than ever publishing the
National Risk Register and will share further details of its
analysis of chronic risks next year. To help guide action, the
government announced at the Autumn Statement that it will
provide up to £10 million funding over 2024-25 and 2025-26
to finance research on risks to the economy and public finances,
including the understanding of risk impacts, their potential
mitigations and response preparations.
We have a coherent plan for 2024 and beyond, with more work
ongoing in order to increase our preparedness and resilience in
the current risk landscape.
