Government departments stand ready to respond to natural hazard risks. The Resilience Directorate and the COBR Unit in the Cabinet Office work across Government, including with the Government Office for Science, the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, the UK Health Security Agency , the Meteorological Office and private sector organisations, to assess the risk of natural hazards, build resilience and develop response plans to respond effectively should hazards occur.

The Government is committed to tackling risks and vulnerabilities. The UK Government Resilience Framework, published in December 2022, is the first articulation of our new strategic approach to resilience. The Framework is a risk-agnostic plan to strengthen the systems, structures, and capabilities which underpin the UK’s resilience to all risks, including those which are yet to emerge.

Our world-leading national cyber-security strategy, supported by £1.9 billion of transformational investment, sets out measures to defend our people, businesses and assets; deter our adversaries; and develop the skills and capabilities we need. Our experts in the National Cyber Security Centre provide advice and guidance to help both public and private sector organisations be more resilient to cyber-attacks.

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Only 10% of the global cyber workforce are female. That represents a huge pool of untapped talent. As part of our ambitious plans to transform the nation’s cyber capabilities, we have launched new initiatives, such as the incredibly successful CyberFirst Girls competition to encourage young women to pursue a career in the industry—it has more than 8,000 participants. We also want business to do more to encourage women into that exciting and rewarding sector.

To deal with the enormous budget deficit that the coalition Government inherited from the Labour party opposite, in the days after the general election in May 2010 we introduced tough new spending controls. In the year to March 2012, those controls helped to save the taxpayer no less than £5.5 billion, on top of the £3.75 billion that we saved the year before.

I am afraid that that is the case. It was open to the Leader of the Opposition, when he sat in my position in the Cabinet Office, to introduce the same kind of controls, but it is very unglamorous hard work; one needs to get into the detail. It is a pity that he did

not do it; if he had done, we would not be in quite the fiscal mess that the coalition Government inherited two years ago.