How resilient is the UK to natural hazards? Lords to question experts
19 January 2021
The House of Lords Risk Assessment and Risk Planning Committee will tomorrow hear evidence from two panels of experts on the United Kingdom’s critical infrastructure in relation to natural hazards; the loss or compromise of which would lead to detrimental impacts on the availability, delivery or integrity of essential services.
The sessions will take place virtually on Wednesday 20 January at 10:30am and can be followed on Parliament TV.
The first panel of witnesses will be:
- Professor David Balmforth, Former president of Institution of Civil Engineers
- Andy Bord, Chief Executive, Flood Re
- Laura Hughes, General Insurance Policy Manager, and flood policy lead, Association of British Insurers
- Catherine Wright, Interim Executive Director of Flood and Coastal Risk Management, the Environment Agency
Questions the Committee is likely to ask include:
- How resilient is the UK’s critical national infrastructure to the risks of flooding?
- Is the UK adequately prepared to mitigate and respond to the risks related to climate change and flooding?
- Is the current legislation and framework for reservoir safety, and other high-risk flooding events, effective and suitably robust?
- What are the challenges of providing insurance against flood risk in the UK?
The second panel of witnesses will be:
- Ian Lisk, Chair of the Natural Hazards Partnership and Head of Hazard Partnership at the Met Office
Questions the Committee is likely to ask include:
- What is the role of the Natural Hazards Partnership in providing advice to the Government on natural hazards?
- Are there any natural hazards which the UK is not well prepared for?
- Has the Hazard Impact Framework been successful in providing a common and consistent approach to modelling and forecasting natural hazard impacts?
