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Publication of Special Report (Government response) to Committee report Readiness for storms ahead? Critical National Infrastructure in an age of climate change. 

• Read the Government Response
• Read the Report
• Find all publications related to this inquiry, including oral and written evidence

The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy is publishing the Government’s response to its report, Readiness for storms ahead? Critical National Infrastructure in an age of climate change, which was published in October 2022.

The report called on the Government to get a ‘proper grip’ on the major national security risks posed by the effects of climate change on critical national infrastructure (CNI). The Chair of the Committee, Dame Margaret Beckett, warned when the report was published that there was a disturbing lack of evidence that anyone in Government was responsible for situations in which climate change was affecting multiple CNI sectors at the same time, creating “cascading crises”.

The Government’s response included input from the Cabinet Office, other Government departments (including the new Department for Energy and Net Zero) and the Met Office. It is published in full here.

Chair's comment

The Chair of the Committee, Dame Margaret Beckett, said: 

“We welcome many aspects of the Government’s response to our report on infrastructure and climate adaptation, including its ongoing work to identify interdependencies between infrastructure sectors, developing work on energy resilience, and improvements to climate prediction and modelling. 

“We are also looking forward to engaging with Ministers on the forthcoming National Adaptation Plan, which we understand will address some of our recommendations.

“We are concerned, however, that the Government is not treating this issue with the urgency that it requires. The long-awaited Resilience Framework, published in December, included some positive actions, particularly on local resilience forums and cross-government risk management. The Government is choosing, however, to delay imposing any new resilience regulations on operators of critical national infrastructure until the end of this decade. 

“This is akin to organising a fire safety awareness course to respond to a blazing fire. 

“Ministers should accelerate this timetable to ensure that our vital infrastructure is properly adapted to the changing climate, and resilient to the more frequent extreme weather events that we are already experiencing, both globally and in the UK.”