§ Mr. Jonathan DjanoglyTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister what additional expenditure over and above that identified prior to 1 April 2002(a) was spent in 2002–03 and (b) will be spent in 2003–04 on national and regional resilience work in the fields of (i) central response, (ii) local responses, (iii) essential services, (iv) mass evacuation, (v) warning, (vi) site clearance and (vii) threat assessment; whether arrangements exist to release expenditure during the current financial year for resilience projects currently under consideration in these fields which may be identified as requiring urgent implementation; and if he will make a statement. [113925]
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§ Mr. LeslieThe Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is fully engaged in the Cabinet Office-led capabilities programme, and all resilience work is co-ordinated within that programme. The central response capability focuses on mechanisms such as business continuity planning which assure that Government departments can function and respond effectively to a no-notice crisis. The local response capability focuses on mechanisms which allow local authorities and emergency services to plan and respond to serious disruption, while the site clearance capability aims to create an action plan for the handling of rabble and site clearance. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has specific responsibilities as lead Government Department for the regional response and site clearance capabilities, and contributes to the development of other capabilities as necessary. Under the central response capability, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister did not incur any specific additional spend during 2002–03, and has budgeted for £1 million in 2003–04. On the local responses and site clearance capabilities, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister spent £2,072,412 during 2002–03, and has budgeted for £4.5 million in 2003–04. With regard to the other areas the hon. Member has raised, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is either not directly involved in those workstreams or has incurred no spend.
The capabilities that we are working to deliver have been developed to allow the Government to deal with the widest range of scenarios. Should a specific additional urgent operational need arise, at any point of the spending cycle, action would be taken to meet it. The public expenditure framework the Government have put in place provides the flexibility to deal with unexpected pressures.