National Resilience Committee — hearing of 2 July 2026: transcript & video

00:00 - 01:43

Speaker 3

Good morning and thank you very much for coming to see us this morning and to help us with this important inquiry into national resilience. I know that some of your organisations have already submitted written evidence which has already been extremely helpful, and I'm sure you're going to be able to build on that this morning. I should just remind you that this is a public session, it's being broadcast live, and in a couple of days you will each receive a transcript of the session and so if you spot any factual inaccuracies or other inaccuracies that'll be your opportunity to make corrections. And if you suddenly think of anything there that is missing, we'd welcome supplementary evidence in writing if and that would be the the point to do it. We've obviously got a lot of questions to ask the three of you, and could I just ask that before you give your first answer, could you introduce yourself briefly so that we've got that on the record as well, please.

Thank you, and I'll kick off with the first question if I may. And I want to ask you all, we hear a lot about the call for a whole-of-society approach to preparedness and resilience. And I would appreciate it if you could each comment on how you think that that whole-of-society approach should incorporate the emergency services and to what extent that is possible or should be possible through the structures and systems that connect national and local, whether they exist already or not. So perhaps I could start with Mr Woodman.

01:43 - 03:32

Speaker 4

Certainly, good morning. So Alex Woodman, I'm the Chief Fire Officer of Hertfordshire, but I'm National Fire Chiefs lead for resilience and I'm chairing our group of LRFs across the UK and the National LRF Chairs Forum. So I think the opening point is that I think we do have a strong resilience system across the UK, but like with anything I think it can be enhanced and and could be better. I think what we've got at the moment is a very strong localised approach which is built through our local resilience forums that sit across the UK in its entirety, slightly different in the devolveds but the principle is the same. I think the areas of expansion that we are looking at and and some gaps if I put them forward at the start is what I don't think we currently have at the moment is a convening authority or a lead agency for resilience.

So clearly government takes that lead role, but in turn what you look at if I call us the delivery arm of that, we are very much currently required to operate under the Civil Contingencies Act and we do that, but what I don't think we've got is a delivery arm clearly with a lead agency for the government's resilience action plan and those other functions. And I will do this as a bid, but this is something very much in the fire and rescue sector that we feel that we could play a key role in leading that across the UK because of the structures and the way that we operate. So I think my my key points around it would be is that I do think we have a strong system. I think we have a culture of preparedness and resilience. I think the two words can mean many things to many people, which can be part of the challenge, but I think we have the opportunity to enhance that with things like a national resilience forum, lead agency for convening and delivering, and I think that would strengthen our delivery across what are currently our category one and category two responders in the CCA.

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