HERE on the front line, Westminster’s first ever National Resilience committee held its inaugural hearing.
It happened as ships were exploding in the Strait of Hormuz and energy prices were flying. Passengers on public transport were being asked to peel their eyes for terrorists. The Royal Navy’s destroyer (single case) was steaming down the Bay of Biscay. Klaxons, alarums, tin helmets all round.
A fretful nation turned its spaniel gaze to the House of Lords Committee Room 4, hoping to hear logistical aces lay out plans in a tone of crisp assurance.
In other countries a national resilience committee might be composed of top military bods, knuckle-crackin’ industrialists and fantastically capable firemen. This being Britain, things were less bracing.
The executive urgency in the room was no more overwhelming than you would find at a church flower arrangements meeting.
‘A fretful nation turned its spaniel gaze to the House of Lords Committee Room 4, hoping to hear logistical aces lay out plans in a tone of crisp assurance’
The Royal Navy destroyer HMS Dragon, which has at last left Portsmouth and is on its way to Cyprus
Resilience Academy’s Eleanor Parker discussed how they ‘deliver a range of training and leaning opportunities’
Things were chaired by Lady Coussins (Crossbencher), first name Jean, a softly spoken 75. She used to run a charity that tries to stop people boozing too much. In the event of nuclear war, do not break open the Chateau Liver-rot.
Her colleagues included Lady Northover (Lib Dem, wet as cucumber), Labour’s ciggy-voiced Lady Hunter (sometime canasta partner of Tony Blair), and a creamily laid-back Tory, Lord Marland. Within five minutes he was scrolling on his mobile, quite possibly checking starting prices at Cheltenham festival. A specialist adviser also sat at the committee table. For the entire hour he did not move so much as an eyebrow. Geckos do that when hoping to go undetected.
There were four witnesses: two women from the National Audit Office, a big-boned chap from local government and, via internet link, the head of training from something called the Resilience Academy. The Zoom screen offered a fine view up her nostrils. She spoke with American-style uplift and her eyes did a lot of darting.
The audit office’s Sian Jones chatted about ‘mature and robust risk systems’ before cheerfully admitting ‘there’s a potential for the whole thing to come a cropper’. Win some, lose some, as the late Ayatollah Khamenei’s life insurance salesman might say. Ms Jones’s colleague Mfon Akpan (‘director of financial and risk management insights’) was less breezy.
She spoke at considerable length about non-linear and volatile risk, risk appetite and spatial planning. A fluent bureaucrat, she used the expression ‘body of work’ some nine times. Lady Coussins made various whimpering noises to get her to shut up. Eventually Ms Akpan dribbled to a halt. On one arm she was wearing a wrist brace. Not entirely reassuring on a risk-management expert.
The chunky chap from local government dilated in hungrier fashion about floods, fires, power cuts and more. Disasters? He couldn’t get enough of ’em. The subject that concerned him most was the securing of food chains.
Then we heard from the Resilience Academy’s Eleanor Parker. Boy, she talked. ‘We deliver a range of training and learning opportunities,’ she droned, before moving on to ‘detailed methodologies’ and ‘win-win opportunities’ and much besides. You wouldn’t want to have to share an Anderson shelter with her. Soon she was burbling about ‘the Consequence Tree’ and how ‘we need to follow the Consequence Tree through to Needs’. Panic flittered across Lady Hunter’s face. She may have been dying for a gasper.
On we drifted. An actual military man, Lord Peach (ex-RAF), asked gnomically: ‘Are we having the right conversation?’ You could sense a watching nation shout: ‘NOOO!’ Ms Akpan, still absorbed by her ‘body of work’, mentioned ‘vulnerabilities, interactions, interdependencies and interconnectedness’. Lady Hunter, with genuine curiosity: ‘Is there such a word as interconnectedness?’ Lady Winterton (Lab), with deft irony that may have been lost on Ms Parker: ‘That could be one for the Consequence Tree.’
Lady Mobarik (Con) asked actually quite a sensible question: what should we, as a nation, be stockpiling? Mr Chunky: ‘Food!’ But no one else seemed to know. Ms Akpan just shrugged that there was ‘significant exposure across the space’. In other words, we’re doomed.
Don’t panic, Mr Mainwaring.
