Every household should have an emergency pack of three days’ food and water so they can be self-sufficient in the event of a national crisis, the Deputy Prime Minister will say.
On Wednesday, Oliver Dowden will launch a website to advise the public on how to cope with crises from the most likely such as floods and power outages to cyber attacks and potential conflict with a hostile state.
Householders will be urged to consider putting together an “emergency kit of items” including enough bottled water and non-perishable food to survive at least three days without leaving home.
Battery or wind-up radios and torches, first-aid packs, hand sanitiser and wet wipes for hygiene if the water is off are also recommended.
It follows research which shows that more than 40 per cent of people do not have three days’ supplies of non-perishable food and water.
Just 15 per cent of people have a kit of essential supplies, according to the poll of 1,009 adults, with the results published on Wednesday.
In a speech to the London defence conference, Mr Dowden will say he is not being a “doomsday prepper”, but simply setting out “sensible safeguards – not stockpiling”.
“One thing that Covid made clear – and that remains clear – is that crises can hit us all in ways we might not be able to anticipate and that resilience requires us all to be ready,” he will say.
“Who can forget the empty supermarket shelves in the early days of the pandemic?
“And how many of us have since acted so we’d be better prepared if it happened again?
“If there was a national power outage, how many of us have torches and batteries?
“If the water went off, how many of us have a few bottles stored away?
“And if there was a cyber attack, how many of us have the means to listen to the radio without mains power or Wi-Fi?”
‘I want to embrace openness’
Mr Dowden will suggest the British “stiff upper lip” mentality has made it unusual for a UK minister to talk about resilience when compared with the openness of other countries.
He cited Finland which had a “72-hour campaign” which encouraged everyone to be self-sufficient in the first three days of a crisis, while Japan had an entire crisis management centre ready to go when the next big earthquake hit.
“I do want to embrace that openness around national resilience,” he said.
The website, headlined “How would you prepare for an emergency?” offers guidance on simple tips to prepare, get information on hazards and particular local risks, understand alerts and warnings and cope with trauma.
The Government’s national risk register identifies 100 threats, from flooding (high likelihood but lower impact) to a conflict (high impact but low likelihood) at the top of the scale and pandemic (high likelihood and high impact).
“Flooding is the most common risk,” he said. “The time it takes a flood to recede, if you’re resilient for three days in simple terms, you’re not going to be worried about getting down to the shops in that period.”
Mr Dowden will also announce plans for the largest-ever simulation of a pandemic in the UK, involving tens of thousands of people next year, to test the UK’s preparedness after Covid struck four years ago.
Volcano alert
It will be part of a four-year national exercise programme to test as many of the crises as possible.
It came as The Telegraph watched Mr Dowden participate in a tabletop exercise simulating a cloud of sulphur dioxide that was due to pass over north-west England from a volcano in Iceland on Tuesday evening. It simulated the 1783 eruption of the Laki volcano which spewed debris over the UK.
Using sophisticated computer modelling and datasets from the National Situation Centre, he was advised that 8.6 million people would be affected including 500,000 with respiratory conditions that would make them highly vulnerable.
Mr Dowden authorised an alert, issued via millions of texts to the phones of people affected, which told the public to remain indoors as the cloud passed over between 7pm and 11pm.