Table of contents

Approximate read time: 19 minutes

The House of Lords is scheduled to consider the following question for short debate in Grand Committee on 20 April 2026:

Baroness Harris of Richmond (Liberal Democrat)  to ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the United Kingdom’s civil preparedness for war.

1. International obligations on civil preparedness: Article 3 of the NATO treaty

Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty requires member countries:

 […] separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, [to] maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.[1]

NATO members have a “national responsibility and a collective commitment” to be resilient to withstand major shocks.[2] NATO defines resilience as:

[…] the individual and collective capacity to prepare for, resist, respond to and quickly recover from shocks and disruptions, and to ensure the continuity of the alliance’s activities.[3]

NATO argues civil preparedness is a “central pillar” of NATO’s resilience strategy and a “critical enabler for the alliance’s collective defence”.[4] It contends effective national societal readiness ensures that civilian and commercial sectors are ready to withstand attacks or disruptions and can continue to support NATO’s military forces “at all times”.

NATO states civil preparedness has three core functions:

  • continuity of government
  • continuity of essential services to the population
  • civil support to military operations

At the 2016 NATO Warsaw summit, members agreed to seven baseline requirements for national resilience against which allies should measure their level of preparedness:

  • assured continuity of government and critical government services, such as the ability to make and communicate decisions
  • resilient energy supplies, ensuring a continued supply, with back-up plans to manage disruptions
  • ability to deal effectively with the “uncontrolled movement of people”
  • resilient food and water resources that are safe from disruption or sabotage
  • ability to deal with mass casualties and disruptive health crisis
  • resilient civil communications systems, ensuring that telecommunications and cyber networks can function even under crisis conditions, with sufficient back-up capacity
  • resilient transport systems, ensuring NATO forces can move across alliance territory rapidly and that civilian services can rely on transportation networks in a crisis

At the 2024 Washington summit, alliance members pledged to strengthen national resilience by integrating civilian planning into national and collective defence planning in peace, crisis and conflict.[5]

Alliance members then made a commitment to invest in national resilience and security at the 2025 Hague summit. Allies pledged to raise defence spending as a percentage of GDP to 5% by 2035, with 3.5% designated for core defence capabilities and 1.5% for broader national resilience and security measures.[6] The Hague summit declaration stated:

[…] allies will account for up to 1.5% of GDP annually to inter alia protect our critical infrastructure, defend our networks, ensure our civil preparedness and resilience, unleash innovation, and strengthen our defence industrial base. The trajectory and balance of spending under this plan will be reviewed in 2029, in light of the strategic environment and updated capability targets.[7]

2. UK government strategy: Whole-of-society preparedness

In a statement to the House of Commons in February 2025, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the government would take a “whole-society” approach to the UK’s security and resilience:

[…] we must change our national security posture, because a generational challenge requires a generational response. That will demand some extremely difficult and painful choices, and through those choices, as hard as they are, we must also seek unity—a whole-society effort that will reach into the lives, the industries and the homes of the British people.

[…]

Our whole approach to national security must now change. We will have to ask British industry, British universities, British businesses and the British people to play a bigger part, and to use this to renew the social contract of our nation—the rights and responsibilities that we owe one another.[8]

The government has set out its approach to national security and civil preparedness in several recent strategic policy documents, namely:

These policy documents outline plans for a new ‘Home defence programme’ led by the Cabinet Office, designed to coordinate government departments and agencies during major conflicts and ensure alignment between military and civil actions.[9] The government linked this to its NATO commitments to improve resilience and preparedness.

The remainder of this section of the briefing summarises some of the key aims set out in these strategy documents regarding UK civil preparedness. A general overview of the policy papers and more detailed examination of the key measures can be found in the following briefings:

2.1 Strategic defence review 2025: Recommendations on home resilience

The strategic defence review 2025 (SDR) was published on 2 June 2025. It argued the UK faced a “generational defence and security challenge” which demanded a “generational response”:

For the first time since the Cold War, the UK faces multiple, direct threats to its security, prosperity, and democratic values.[10]

The review was conducted by Lord Robertson, General Sir Richard Barrons and Dr Fiona Hill.[11]

The review made 62 recommendations, all of which the government has pledged to implement.[12] The reviewers said they were proposing a combination of “reinforced homeland resilience and a new model integrated force, putting NATO first”.[13]

The SDR’s key recommendations included:[14]

  • Move to warfighting readiness: establishing an ‘integrated force’ equipped for the future and strengthened homeland defence.
  • Engine for growth: driving jobs and prosperity through a new partnership with industry, radical procurement reforms and backing UK businesses.
  • ‘NATO first’: stepping up on European security by leading in NATO, with strengthened nuclear, new tech and updated conventional capabilities. However, the review stressed that ‘NATO first’ did not mean “NATO-only”.
  • UK innovation driven by lessons from Ukraine: harnessing drones, data and digital warfare to make our armed forces stronger and safer.
  • Whole-of-society approach: widening participation in national resilience and “renewing the nation’s contract with those who serve”.

On the matter of home defence and resilience, the review argued that a whole-of-society approach was essential to “modern deterrence, ensuring continuity in national life in a crisis”.[15]

The SDR contended:

Reconnecting Defence with society should be the starting point, as part of a national conversation led by the government on defence and security.[16]

The review said the government “must promote unity of effort across society” through a national conversation and by raising public awareness of the threats to the UK.[17]

The SDR made several recommendations on strengthening home defence and resilience in the context of the whole-of-society approach, including:

  • Expanding cadet forces by 30% by 2030 and working with the Department for Education to develop understanding of the armed forces among young people in school.[18]
  • Inviting leaders of FTSE100, other relevant companies and civil society organisations to attend defence courses.[19]
  • Developing a “more focused and substantive body of work” to ensure the security and resilience of critical national infrastructure (CNI).[20] The SDR argued the government should explore a ‘new deal’ for the protection and defence of CNI that is “rooted in partnership between Defence and private-sector and allied operators of infrastructure that is most critical to the continuity of essential services”. It also said that, as part of the home defence programme, Defence should identify which elements of UK CNI are integral to sustaining operations and projecting force overseas, and therefore must be protected in scenarios both below and above the threshold of war.
  • Exploring options for the development of a new force to protect key CNI sites. The review proposed the prospective new force should be modelled on the reserves and should connect local communities with Defence; for example, recruited and employed locally, with a narrowly defined remit and training commitment.[21] The SDR said the plans should sit within the home defence programme.
  • Ensuring plans made under the home defence programme meet Defence’s needs in the event of escalation to war, including mobilisation of reserves and industry, and ensuring Defence has ready access to private-sector infrastructure for operations.[22] The review argued this should be underpinned by legislation as necessary.
  • Ensuring the government can achieve a “sustainable and effective transition to war if necessary”.[23] The SDR suggested a new defence readiness bill to provide the government with powers to mobilise reserves and industry in the event a crisis escalates into conflict. The review said the bill should mandate annual reporting on UK warfighting readiness.

In February 2026, when asked about the government’s plans to introduce the defence readiness bill, Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard stated legislation would be introduced when parliamentary times allows.[24]

2.2 National security strategy 2025: “New national resilience effort”

The national security strategy (NSS) was published by the government on 24 June 2025. It said the UK was facing a series of security challenges in an “era of radical uncertainty”:

Russian aggression menaces our continent. Strategic competition is intensifying. Extremist ideologies are on the rise. Technology is transforming the nature of both war and domestic security. Hostile state activity takes place on British soil.[25]

The NSS argued the UK needed to adapt its approach to security to meet the growing threats at home and in cyberspace.[26] It set out a new strategic framework, “covering all aspects of national security and international policy”. The framework consists of three “mutually reinforcing” pillars:[27]

  • Pillar 1: Security at home—defend our territory; make the UK a harder target; and build resilience to future threats.
  • Pillar 2: Strength abroad—bolster collective security; renew and refresh key alliances; and develop new partnerships in new domains.
  • Pillar 3: Increased sovereign and asymmetric capabilities—rebuild our defence industrial base; identify, nurture and protect other sovereign capabilities; pursue asymmetric advantage.

The government said it would seek to consolidate the framework by working with all parts of society—including business, academia, and devolved and local government—through a “new national resilience effort”.[28] It stated this approach would begin by raising public awareness of the threats facing the UK and by developing a “new social contract” between the government and the British people. The government argued that security and resilience at home were essential foundations for delivering economic growth.[29]

The government said the new resilience strategy would assess the UK’s current resilience levels and set out the government’s plans to support civil society and the public sector to better address risks and vulnerabilities.[30]

2.3 UK Resilience action plan 2025: Preparing society and infrastructure

The resilience action plan (RAP) was published on 14 July 2025. The government stated the plan focused on UK domestic resilience, a “fundamental element” of its NSS.[31]

The government intends for the RAP to deliver against three objectives in the current parliament:[32]

  • continuously assess how resilient the UK is to target interventions and resources effectively
  • enable the whole of society to take action to increase their resilience
  • strengthen the core public sector resilience system

The RAP set out operational steps for strengthening civil preparedness, including:

  • Asking and supporting the public to take action: The government said it wanted to encourage the public to prepare for emergencies as set out on the government’s ‘Prepare’ website. It committed to increasing transparency with the public about the risks the UK faces through the websites ‘Prepare’, ‘Ready Scotland’ and ‘Foreign travel advice’, and through the deployment of emergency alerts.
  • Better integrating voluntary, community and faith services (VCFS): The government argued that in an emergency informal and self-organised community response groups understand and quickly work to support their communities. The government wants to make more effective use of this sector through improved collaboration, partnership and integration.
  • Improving CNI resilience: The government said it would introduce several measures to ensure the continuity of essential services in the event of a crisis. These included developing a CNI knowledge base, an interactive map of all the CNI in the UK; targeting any issues exposed by the CNI knowledge base by ensuring regulations are fully utilised; and engaging with key parts of industry through cross-sector roundtables.
  • Providing the right tools to the private sector on resilience: The government said it would introduce a number of new measures to support businesses. These included expanding the ‘Prepare’ website with a dedicated section for businesses; increasing training opportunities through the UK Resilience Academy (UKRA); and establishing a new supply chain centre to work with businesses and international allies to diagnose vulnerabilities and threats and to develop policy.
  • Training and exercises that involve organisations across society: The government launched the UKRA in April 2025 to build skills across the whole of society. It will be made available to multiple sectors, including central, devolved and local government; emergency responders; VCFS organisations; and the private sector.

The government also committed to a new ‘national exercising programme’ that would deliver annual exercises on a wide range of risks.[33] Exercises would involve people and organisations across society and the government.

3. Parliamentary scrutiny of the government’s approach: Committee inquiries

The House of Commons Defence Committee has broadly welcomed the government’s commitment to a whole-of-society approach on national security and the focus on homeland defence and resilience. However, it has expressed concerns about the pace of delivery of the governments’ plans and transparency over the work of the home defence programme.

3.1 Commons Defence Committee reports

In July 2025, the House of Commons Defence Committee published a report examining ‘grey zone’ activity, how the threats in this area have evolved and how well the UK was positioned to counter them.[34] The grey zone refers to “hostile activity below the threshold of direct, state-on-state conflict”.[35]

The committee concluded a ‘whole-of-society’ approach was necessary to “effectively counter” all grey zone threats.[36] It agreed with the SDR that homeland resilience would become a “significant activity” for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and would require more cross-government coordination. The committee recommended:

  • the MoD engage with wider government, society and industry by sharing its expertise on grey zone threats
  • the government appoint a dedicated homeland security minister to coordinate across central, regional and local government, industry and wider society to “rapidly enhance the UK’s national preparedness and resilience”
  • greater visibility and engagement of the armed forces with society[37]

In November 2025, the Defence Committee published a report on the ‘UK contribution to European security’, which further considered the government’s approach to UK homeland defence and societal resilience.[38] The committee raised concerns about the UK’s ability to defend its homeland and to meet its NATO article 3 obligations on national resilience.

Key findings included:

  • The UK “lacks a plan” on homeland defence with “little progress on the home defence programme”.[39] The committee also criticised the lack of transparency over the work of the programme. The MoD told the committee that it was working with the Cabinet Office to “ensure that the defence part and the civilian part of the plan are aligned”.[40] However, the committee said it was difficult to assess progress because information on the programme was not published. The committee said this suggested the government did not treat industry or civil society as “partners in delivering outcomes”.
  • The UK may be failing to meet its article 3 NATO obligations. The committee said it was “deeply concerned by reports that the UK had no article 3 national plan and that the work on the home defence programme was still ongoing”.[41]
  • The prime minister’s national conversation on defence and security had “yet to start”, with little public engagement and no clear central direction on the “national conversation”.[42]
  • Cross-government working on homeland defence and resilience was “nowhere it needs to be”.[43]
  • It remained unclear what legislation the government intended to bring forward in support of resilience and readiness.[44]

The committee recommended the government should:

  • publish a timetable on the generation of the home defence programme and briefings should be offered to select committees scrutinising the departments with responsibilities under the plan
  • create a minister of homeland security
  • set out a timetable with key milestones for defence readiness legislation, including its approach to pre-legislative scrutiny and a strategy for engagement with Parliament and with the public[45]

3.2 House of Lords Committee on National Resilience

The House of Lords Committee on National Resilience was appointed in January 2026.[46] It is chaired by Baroness Coussins (Crossbench) and will report by 30 November 2026. As part of its inquiry, it will be examining:

  • the current context for preparedness and resilience
  • how to achieve a whole of society approach
  • the interconnectedness of risks across different threats, sectors, countries and timeframes
  • strategic gaps which could be addressed, including in the private sector

4. Defence and resilience sector analysis: National Preparedness Commission report

The National Preparedness Commission is an independent, non-political body comprising figures from public life, business, academia and civil society.[47] Its chair is Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour).

In February 2026, it published the report ‘National preparedness: The new strategic issues’, which examined the changing global context for national preparedness.[48] It argued there was a “pressing need for better national preparedness” in the UK, given an increasingly uncertain geopolitical environment and growing societal division “fuelled by mis- and disinformation”.[49]

On the government’s policy to strengthen homeland resilience and preparedness, it welcomed the suite of strategies published by the government in 2025. It said these showed a “higher level of cohesion than former versions”.[50] However, the report argued the “detailed assumptions” within and between the strategies did not “seem to be fully assessed, let alone backed by meaningful action plans”.[51] The report agreed on the need for the whole of society to play its part in strengthening national resilience, but it found that large parts of the population did not “see why this is so important”.[52]

The commission identified five priority areas the UK should focus on to improve national preparedness:

  • Education: children and young people need to be equipped with critical thinking skills.
  • Social cohesion: faith leaders, community groups and private sector organisations need to know their role in national preparedness. National pride must be “fostered without encouraging nationalism”.
  • Household preparedness: more must be done to explain what is being asked of the population and how they can prepare. The commission argued there needed to be clear and simple advice that is delivered in multiple formats.
  • New national conversation: there needs to be broader public engagement on the challenges the UK faces and an “aggressive counter-narrative” to that which is “eroding public trust, cohesion and confidence”. The commission suggested the government should consider media campaigns, modules in the national curriculum and citizens’ assemblies.
  • Economic preparedness: the UK needs a strong and flexible economy to enable investment in preparedness and build a stronger defence capability. The commission argued economic preparedness requires incentives for businesses to invest in continuity planning, training, and resilient infrastructure; firms to assess supply‑chain vulnerabilities and diversify where possible; and investment to stimulate “deliberate and coordinated innovation”.[53]

The commission report concluded that implementation of its recommendations would require legislation to “ensure the level of accountability, engagement and scrutiny that it needs”.[54]

5. Read more

Parliamentary material

Briefings

Press and commentary

Photo by Jan Huber on Unsplash

References

  1. North Atlantic Treaty, article 3, 4 April 1949. Return to text
  2. NATO, ‘Resilience, civil preparedness and article 3’, updated 13 November 2024. Return to text
  3. As above. Return to text
  4. As above. Return to text
  5. NATO, ‘The Washington summit declaration’, 10 July 2024. Return to text
  6. NATO, ‘The Hague summit declaration’, 25 June 2025. Return to text
  7. As above. Return to text
  8. HC Hansard, 25 February 2025, cols 632–4. Return to text
  9. Cabinet Office, ‘UK government resilience action plan’, 14 July 2025. Return to text
  10. Ministry of Defence, ‘The strategic defence review 2025: Making Britain safer—secure at home, strong abroad’, 2 June 2025, p 12. Return to text
  11. Lord Robertson is a former Labour defence secretary and secretary general of NATO; General Sir Richard Barrons is a former commander of the Joint Forces Command and former deputy chief of the defence staff; and Dr Fiona Hill was deputy assistant to the US president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on President Donald Trump’s National Security Council from 2017 to 2019. Return to text
  12. Ministry of Defence, ‘The strategic defence review 2025: Making Britain safer—secure at home, strong abroad’, 2 June 2025,, p 6. Return to text
  13. As above, p 9. Return to text
  14. Ministry of Defence, ‘Strategic defence review 2025: Key announcements’, 2 June 2025. Return to text
  15. Ministry of Defence, ‘The strategic defence review 2025: Making Britain safer— secure at home, strong abroad’, 2 June 2025, p 18. Return to text
  16. As above, pp 18–19. Return to text
  17. As above, p 87. Return to text
  18. As above, p 92. Return to text
  19. As above. Return to text
  20. As above, pp 89–90. Critical national infrastructure includes sectors such as food, energy, communication, health services and defence; see: National Protective Security Authority, ‘Critical national infrastructure’, updated 18 February 2026. Return to text
  21. Ministry of Defence, ‘The strategic defence review 2025: Making Britain safer—secure at home, strong abroad’, 2 June 2025, p 90. Return to text
  22. As above, p 93. Return to text
  23. As above, p 19. Return to text
  24. House of Commons, ‘Written question: Defence (110920)’, 13 February 2026. Return to text
  25. Cabinet Office, ‘National security strategy 2025: Security for the British people in a dangerous world’, 24 June 2025, CP 1338, p 8. Return to text
  26. As above. Return to text
  27. As above, p 20. Return to text
  28. As above, p 12. Return to text
  29. As above, p 21. Return to text
  30. As above, p 27. Return to text
  31. Cabinet Office, ‘UK government resilience action plan’, 14 July 2025. Return to text
  32. As above. Return to text
  33. As above. Return to text
  34. House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Defence in the grey zone’, 9 July 2025, HC 405 of session 2024–26. Return to text
  35. As above, p 1. Return to text
  36. As above. Return to text
  37. As above, pp 24–5. Return to text
  38. House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘UK contribution to European security’, 19 November 2025, HC 520 of session 2024–26. Return to text
  39. As above, p 1. Return to text
  40. As above, p 49. Return to text
  41. As above, p 54. Return to text
  42. As above, pp 1 and 53. Return to text
  43. As above, p 54. Return to text
  44. As above, p 50. Return to text
  45. As above, p 55. Return to text
  46. House of Lords National Resilience Committee, ‘Call for evidence launched into national preparedness and resilience’, 9 March 2026. Return to text
  47. National Preparedness Commission, ‘Commissioners’, accessed 16 March 2026. Return to text
  48. National Preparedness Commission, ‘National preparedness: The new strategic issues’, 27 February 2026. Return to text
  49. As above, p 1. Return to text
  50. As above, p 7. Return to text
  51. As above. Return to text
  52. As above, p 8. Return to text
  53. As above, pp 23–5. Return to text
  54. As above, p 25. Return to text