Source · Select Committees · National Security Strategy (Joint Committee)
Recommendation 15
15
Accepted in Part
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology should ensure all lead departments have detailed sector-by-sector...
Recommendation
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology should ensure all lead departments have detailed sector-by-sector technical impact studies on areas most likely to be affected and response plans—notably finance, maritime and air traffic, communications, defence and supply chains including food and fuel. We suggest such assessments are handled securely given their value to hostile actors. We note that some cascading impacts may not be immediately obvious—it may therefore be helpful to begin with an underpinning assessment of internet failure modes and how this would affect critical systems. The Cabinet Office resilience teams could usefully help to co-ordinate and audit these assessments. (Recommendation, Paragraph 99) 64
Government response summary AI-generated
The government partially agrees on the importance of a centralised coordination function, establishing an Undersea Infrastructure Security Oversight Board chaired by the Cabinet Office for strategic direction, but does not adopt the specific suggestion to expand SIRG or set up a new inter-ministerial group.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Accepted in Part
HM Government · verbatim extract
Accepted in Part
. The Government agrees with this recommendation. The UK’s critical sectors must be prepared for reasonable-worst-case subsea cable disruption events. As the Committee notes, DSIT is already working with Lead Government Departments (LGDs) to update the Government’s technical impact studies for sectors most likely to be affected by cable disruption. and the internet, which will inform assessments of cascading impacts on other critical sectors. DSIT, working with individual LGDs, will accelerate work on these assessments, which will be used by the LGDs to develop appropriate response plans for their critical sectors. The Cabinet Office’s ‘Undersea Infrastructure Security Oversight Board’ will provide oversight of this work.
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