Britons should take the deterioration in global security seriously and begin preparing for the possibility of prolonged disruption, according to the chair of the National Preparedness Commission, as the government prepares to launch a new campaign on household resilience.
Lord Toby Harris told the Metro, the government had shown a “degree of caution for a number of years about not worrying people”, but argued that ministers now needed to explain more clearly the potential consequences of the risks facing the UK.
The government’s three-year household resilience public information campaign is due to launch later this year, with advice designed to help households prepare for emergencies and disruption.
A government official told the Financial Times: “It will be common sense, not scaremongering.”
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The campaign comes as European governments confront a deteriorating security environment, including Russia’s war against Ukraine, sabotage threats, cyber-attacks and vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure. The UK’s most senior military officer, Chief of the Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, has described the current period as the most dangerous of his 35-year military career.
Lord Harris said the public “ought to be taking that seriously”, adding: “We’ve seen the deterioration in terms of international relations.
“We’re probably closer to widespread war in Europe than we have been for over 60 years.”
He also pointed to growing tensions over Taiwan and their potential economic consequences.
“There is increasing sabre-rattling by the Chinese about taking action against Taiwan,” he said.
“That would have immediate implications in terms of the supply of the semiconductors which most key IT processes rely on, and potentially would block the Straits of Taiwan, which would have as big an economic effect as the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. In fact, probably bigger.”
The argument is that national resilience is no longer confined to military preparedness. Disruption to power, water, communications, transport, supply chains or digital infrastructure could have immediate consequences for households and businesses.
Historian Margaret MacMillan, author of War: How Conflict Shaped Us, told the BBC: “It’s not the tanks you need to worry about.
“It’s the cutting of cables on the ocean floor. It’s the hacking into systems on which so many things depend. The possibility for asymmetric war, for cyber war, is growing by leaps and bounds.”
She added: “I think we have become used to the idea that peace is the normal state of affairs, that it’s going to last.
“So no, I don’t think we are psychologically prepared… but I do think that we are beginning to recognise that war is something that is closer to us than we’d like to think”.
Andrew Michta, a Polish-born American academic and professor of strategic studies at the Hamilton School, University of Florida, argued that Britain’s preparations had not yet matched the scale of the risks.
“The UK is also largely disarmed and, most importantly, mentally,” he said.
“There is no readiness for what’s happening because the policy elites are not addressing their public’s in a way that would honestly state the gravity of the situation.”
He said public advice was largely confined to an “obscure part of the Gov.uk website” titled Prepare, contrasting Britain with countries such as Sweden that distribute preparedness guidance directly to households.
The government’s Prepare programme already advises households to make emergency plans, record important telephone numbers and consider how they would cope with disruption to essential services.
Michta said there “probably needs to be a ramping up of its intensity and scale”, although he added that the government was “on the right direction of travel”.
Lord Harris said households needed to consider how they would cope without basic services.
“The message in quite a number of other countries is: How would you and your household survive for three or four days without electricity or without water, and so on?
“And that’s quite a big ask for people. But that only really happens once you’ve got a level of public awareness that, at the moment, I don’t think we yet have in this country.”
The government has said the campaign will focus on practical measures rather than alarm, with its resilience strategy explicitly calling for households, businesses and communities to strengthen their preparedness.
A government spokesperson said: “Safeguarding national security is the first priority of any government.
“We are committed to raising awareness of the simple steps households can take to make themselves more resilient, and we are driving forward the Home Defence Programme to build our country’s preparedness for various global and domestic threats.”
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