Recommendation 7

It is welcome that the Government undertook extensive work on energy resilience in the wake of Storm Arwen, but this was a reactive response to a national crisis resulting in widespread power outages lasting over a week, and necessitating military deployment. Ministers should have anticipated and been better prepared for such an event, through proactive adaptation efforts and proper crisis planning. This is demonstrative of wider shortfalls in Government risk management—as we outlined in our previous reports during this Parliament, on Biosecurity and the UK’s national security machinery. We will return to this topic in Chapter 4.