Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 2
2
Deferred
Implement coordinated resilience investment, give infrastructure regulators consistent climate roles, and encourage private adaptation funding.
Recommendation
The Cabinet Office is taking too long to develop its approach to investment in resilience, including private sector investment. Public and private sector investment is critical in developing national resilience to extreme weather events and to the impacts of climate change. The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury do not know how much money is spent on resilience to extreme weather events or other national risks. The Cabinet Office has committed to having a coordinated and prioritised approach to investment in resilience within government, informed by a shared understanding of risk, by 2030. By 2030, the Cabinet Office has also committed to reviewing existing regulatory regimes on resilience to ensure they are fit for purpose. Currently, some regulators do not have a statutory climate resilience remit and we are concerned that slow implementation of these measures is holding back UK resilience. The 2023 Green Finance Strategy sets out government’s proposed action to prepare the UK for the physical impacts of the changing climate, to align financial flows with a climate-resilient economy, and to increase investment in adaptation, but its commitments on adaptation are substantially weaker than those on net zero and on nature. Recommendation 2: By 2028, the Cabinet Office should: a) implement the government’s coordinated and prioritised approach to investment in resilience; b) give infrastructure regulators consistent climate resilience roles; and 6 Government resilience: extreme weather c) work with HM Treasury and other government departments to encourage greater private investment in climate adaptation.
Government Response Summary
The government is deferring action by referencing a national resilience review overseen by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, with a Treasury Minute to be published after the review concludes.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
In his oral statement to Parliament on 19th July 2024 responding to the COVID-19 Inquiry Module One report, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster announced that he would oversee a review of national resilience. A Treasury Minute will be published once this review has concluded. The Cabinet Office will write to the new Committee in the meantime.