The UK has a dangerous level of self-confidence in its ability to predict and mitigate the risks that we face. The coronavirus pandemic is an archetypal example of our misplaced conviction in risk assessment and identification. 

We knew that a run-away train called “pandemic” was around the corner. What we didn’t know was that we had failed to put a system in place to pull the locomotive’s brakes. These oversights left us woefully unprepared for the collision. 

The House of Lords Risk Assessment and Risk Planning Committee inquiry was set up amid the pandemic to scrutinise the Government’s risk management system. This was not a pandemic inquiry, but we have used coronavirus as a launchpad to investigate Britain’s preparedness for a diverse array of risk scenarios. 

The risks we face are changing. To take one example, technological advances have raised the potential of maliciously deployed technology in both the cyber and physical landscapes. 

We don’t know exactly how the coronavirus pandemic began. However, the biotechnology needed to replicate the devastation caused by the coronavirus is disseminated around the world. The Government will not be able to discover or monitor the use of backstreet laboratories to manipulate the biological make-up of a pathogen. In such cases, resilience and preparation, rather than prediction, would be the most effective mitigation strategy. 

These evolving threats, both cyber and biosecurity, could be compounded by the manifestation of climate change scenarios. As is already the case in low and lower-middle-income countries, climate trumps coronavirus. The immediacy of extreme weather events would erode any state’s ability to instigate a thorough response to a new pandemic or targeted cyber-security attack. 

In Britain, the effects of extreme weather events will increasingly rip through elements of our critical national infrastructure as we continue to integrate smart technology into the system. Risks never evolve in a vacuum; their cascading effects topple like dominoes through our society. 

The Risk Assessment and Risk Planning Committee’s report, “Preparing for Extreme Risks: Building a Resilient Society”, published today, presents the Government with an opportunity to rectify the balance between prediction and preparation. We conclude that resilience, based on the premise that prevention is cheaper than the cure, should replace the current system of rigorously scientific guesswork. 

In the face of unknown risks, resilience should be the foundation of our country’s strategy to combat hazards and threats. Resilience is the ability of a system exposed to hazards or threats to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner. This includes through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions through risk management. 

The Government’s current strategy is highly centralised and is dependent upon opaque risk assessment and management. Access to the Government’s risk assessment documents is hidden behind an unnecessary wall of secrecy. 

Opening the risk management process to external scrutiny is essential if we are going to manage the next crisis better than we handled this one. Moreover, decentralising risk management to our highly capable local authorities, voluntary groups and the population would ensure a level of preparedness deeper than the one we currently maintain. 

During the pandemic, our communities have repeatedly shown that they can be trusted to step up and help to ensure national safety. The Government must see the population as participants, not subjects, in the pursuit of resilience. The UK has a strong voluntary sector which must form the foundation of any future response to crises. 

The Government will not succeed in anticipating every threat or hazard. For that reason, the country needs to be prepared to recover from shocks to which it is vulnerable. That capacity to recover must be based on a flexible, adaptable and diverse population that appreciates the need for its own resilience. 

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom is a member of the House of Lords Risk Assessment and Risk Planning Committee