The British public should begin taking \u201csmall but important steps\u201d to secure and protect water, power supplies and basic phone signal in case of further severe weather emergencies, national crises or cyber-attacks, Downing Street has said.<\/p>\n
Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, told MPs \u201cthe risks we face from climate change cannot be underestimated\u201d, and warned of the \u201csignificant and prolonged disruption to essential services\u201d extreme weather events could cause.<\/p>\n
Jones also said the combination of increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence, and the conflict in the Middle East and Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine could enable criminals to carry out \u201chostile cyber-attacks against businesses and critical infrastructure\u201d.<\/p>\n
As a result the UK\u2019s national risk register has been updated with seven new crises, including the threat of foreign interference in UK democracy, the risk of cyber-attacks on data infrastructure, water infrastructure and police systems, and a \u201cdigital resilience failure\u201d scenario, based on the global technology outage caused by the CrowdStrike disruption in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ministers were warned in May that Britain\u2019s vital supply chains were unprepared for the prospect of a major shock, such as a war with Russia, and that bold steps were needed to catch up with \u201cworst-case scenario\u201d planning by European states. Research launched privately in Westminster by the National Preparedness Commission suggested Britain was lagging behind other European countries when it came to the stockpiling of supplies such as critical medicines, and called for fresh thinking.<\/p>\n Scientists have also cautioned<\/a> that human actions in the form of burning fossil fuels and intensifying agriculture have supercharged hot weather, with data suggesting the heatwave<\/a> across England and Wales in June killed about 440 people a day during its three-day peak.<\/p>\n Jones said: \u201cThroughout our history, the UK has overcome challenges, from plagues and pandemics to war, and our fair share of wet weather. It is right that we consistently evaluate the risks we could face and plan for what may come.<\/p>\n \u201cThis year we saw temperatures across the UK breaking records in May, only to be exceeded again in June, and AI offers new ways for criminals to carry out cyber-attacks against us, as well as offering huge opportunities for our economy and security.\u201d<\/p>\n In a written statement, Jones also announced a national public awareness campaign would be launched to help people prepare for such emergencies, \u201cbe that severe weather or a cyber-attack which can impact access to power, water, phone signal or local shops to get food\u201d.<\/p>\n The UK\u2019s biggest ever \u201cnational home defence exercise\u201d will take place in 2027, featuring hundreds of officials wargaming Britain\u2019s preparedness for hybrid attacks and ensure Britain is in alignment with its Nato allies against a backdrop of rising threats.<\/p>\n The armed forces minister Louise Sandher-Jones said: \u201cRussia is not only a threat to Nato\u2019s eastern flank. It is a direct threat to the UK homeland and these exercises, together with important measures like updating our \u2018war books\u2019, will help prepare us to meet that threat, as well as showing the British public how seriously we are taking it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The British public should begin taking \u201csmall but important steps\u201d to secure and protect water, power supplies and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-691917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}