How safe is the United Kingdom from risks and emergencies? Lords to hear from Civil Contingencies Secretariat
Tuesday 24 November 2020
Is the current National Security Risk Assessment process sufficiently rigorous, wide ranging and consistent? Members of the House of Lords Risk Assessment and Risk Planning Committee will tomorrow pose this question to Roger Hargreaves, Director of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, during its first public evidence session.
Further questions the Committee is likely to ask Mr Hargreaves include:
- What gaps or challenges in the current process need to be addressed?
- Why has the National Risk Assessment and the National Security Risk Assessment been combined?
- How are different kinds of risks prioritised and what role does politics play in that prioritisation?
- How well does the current process allow for the identification and assessment of risks where there has been no recent historical precedent?
- Has the way in which the public and communities responded to COVID-19 prompted any consideration of whether the risk assessment process should be made more transparent, and the public made more involved in the process of risk planning, and risk mitigation?
- What lessons can be learnt from the approaches taken to risk identification, risk assessment and risk planning in other countries?
The session will take place virtually on Wednesday 25 November at 10:30am and can be followed on Parliament TV.
The Committee is expected to launch its call for evidence imminently.
