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Telegraph
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Give vegans special rations in national emergency, says crisis adviser
Vegans, vegetarians and Muslims should receive special food rations if disaster strikes Britain, according to a food crisis expert. Prof Tim Lang said people needed to eat familiar food in times of shock, and the government must cater for dietary requirements. An emeritus professor of food policy at the University of London, Prof Lang is an adviser to the National Preparedness Commission, an emergency planning committee set up in the wake of the Covid pandemic. 'If you want people to carry on not being in psychological shock, they need to have things that they're familiar with and comfortable with, not to experience the new,' Prof Lang told an audience at the Hay Festival in Wales. 'They have just experienced a lot of things – explosions, energy outage or whatever it is – and you want them to have things that they know they can eat. 'You don't want people used to a halal diet to eat a non-halal diet, for example, or vegetarians and vegans to have to eat meat. You've got to have some flexibility about what is normal now. It's very different to 1940,' he said. Prof Lang shared the Hay stage with Sir David Omand, a former director of GCHQ and the author of How To Survive A Crisis: Lessons in Resilience and Avoiding Disaster. Sir David warned that Britain was more vulnerable than ever to an attack on its infrastructure, saying: 'Historically, crises have arisen and the human race has survived. 'But what's different now is that we're more vulnerable. If you've got complex systems, they are very difficult to fix when things start to go wrong. You just need to think about cyber: would you have guessed that Marks & Spencer would have £300 million taken off their bottom line by a ransomware attack? 'So we are more vulnerable and we will struggle at the moment if some of these things actually happen. You just need to look at extreme weather events, never mind what could happen in the longer term.' Differing diets Prof Lang said planning by other European countries, including Germany and Switzerland, was 'getting into the minutiae about different diets, different ethnicities, different income groups and so on'. Crisis planning should take into account what people eat, he said, adding: 'What are your fears? What are your habits? What are you used to? What do you consider 'normal' food?' In the Second World War, the nation accepted the basic foodstuffs distributed as part of rationing. But Prof Lang said: 'Now, Britain's favourite food for children is pizza. It's a different world today.' He suggested that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had failed to grasp the importance of Britain's diverse eating habits. 'Getting prepared is about anticipating and part of that has got to mean anticipating the public. You can't assume Defra knows what the public is doing, or thinks, or its diversity,' he said. 'I want some new committees, and existing committees like the scientific advisory committee on nutrition, to actually analyse British diets and say 'OK, we need to have different dietary advice for different conditions'.' He also criticised the previous government for issuing basic advice in May last year that every household should stockpile three days' worth of unperishable food. 'This made me tear what hair I had out, because we need to think very carefully about what sort of food in what sort of circumstances,' he said. 'Can you cook? Maybe the electricity system has just gone. Let's think through the detail.' Food storage concerns Prof Lang said the absence of food storage in Britain would be keenly felt in the event of a crisis. 'Britain feeds itself from nine companies who account for 94.5 per cent of all food purchased,' he said. 'Those companies are very competitive, very powerful, they control long supply chains which have all been managed in an increasingly integrated way to get rid of storage. 'They go literally from the farm through to that point when you buy it in the supermarket, and your bill is re-ordering the food. They've spent 50 years, the logistics industry, getting rid of storage. 'What if it had been Tesco [hit by a cyber attack], not M&S? Tesco sells nearly a third of all food. If that goes down…' Sir David referred to the 'paradox of warning', when a known threat is looming but there is no political impetus to solve it until it is too late. He said: 'There is a terrible phenomenon which is that we don't actually think this will happen because it's our policy that it shouldn't happen. This is my explanation of Oct 7, when Hamas attacked Israel. They weren't expecting it, it was a surprise, because in the policy the Israeli government was following, it couldn't happen because that wasn't the policy. 'You can think yourself into hubris, complacency… and my worry is that we are rather complacent, and we'll get the wake-up call when suddenly we flick the switch and the lights don't come on because of some cyber attack or Russian attack or whatever it might be.' Sir David said planning must also take into account 'the psychological resilience of the public' in the event of a crisis, and expressed doubt that Gen Z or Gen Alpha could cope as well as older people. He asked: 'Is this generation or the upcoming generation more resilient than our generation was? You'll get two views but my hunch is probably a bit less, unless the youngsters have actually been abroad and done aid work or whatever it might be. When bad things happen, they're going to feel it more.'
Arab Times
23-03-2025
- Politics
- Arab Times
UK govt orders probe into Heathrow shutdown that sparked concern over energy resilience
LONDON, March 23, (AP): The British government on Saturday ordered an investigation into the country's "energy resilience' after an electrical substation fire shut Heathrow Airport for almost a day and raised concerns about the UK's ability to withstand disasters or attacks on critical infrastructure. While Heathrow Airport said it was now "fully operational,' thousands of passengers remained stuck, and airlines warned that severe disruption will last for days as they scramble to relocate planes and crews and get travelers to their destinations. Inconvenienced passengers, angry airlines and concerned politicians all want answers about how one seemingly accidental fire could shut down Europe's busiest air hub. "This is a huge embarrassment for Heathrow airport. It's a huge embarrassment for the country that a fire in one electricity substation can have such a devastating effect," said Toby Harris, a Labour Party politician who heads the National Preparedness Commission, a group that campaigns to improve resilience. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said he'd asked the National Energy System Operator, which oversees UK gas and electricity networks, to "urgently investigate" the fire, "to understand any wider lessons to be learned on energy resilience for critical national infrastructure." It is expected to report initial findings within six weeks. "The government is determined to do everything it can to prevent a repeat of what happened at Heathrow," Miliband said. Heathrow announced its own review, to be led by former transport secretary Ruth Kelly, a member of the airport's board. Heathrow Chairman Paul Deighton said Kelly will look at "the robustness and execution of Heathrow's crisis management plans, the airport's response during the incident and how the airport recovered.' More than 1,300 flights were canceled and some 200,000 people stranded Friday after an overnight fire at a substation 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away cut power to Heathrow, and to more than 60,000 properties.
South China Morning Post
22-03-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
UK orders urgent probe into Heathrow airport shutdown amid energy resilience fears
The British government on Saturday ordered an investigation into the country's 'energy resilience' after an electrical substation fire shut Heathrow Airport for almost a day and raised concerns about the UK's ability to withstand disasters or attacks on critical infrastructure. Advertisement While Heathrow Airport said it was now 'fully operational', thousands of passengers remained stuck, and airlines warned that severe disruption will last for days as they scramble to relocate planes and crews and get travellers to their destinations. Inconvenienced passengers, angry airlines and concerned politicians all want answers about how one seemingly accidental fire could shut down Europe's busiest air hub. 'This is a huge embarrassment for Heathrow airport. It's a huge embarrassment for the country that a fire in one electricity substation can have such a devastating effect,' said Toby Harris, a Labour Party politician who heads the National Preparedness Commission, a group that campaigns to improve resilience. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said he had asked the National Energy System Operator, which oversees UK gas and electricity networks, to 'urgently investigate' the fire, 'to understand any wider lessons to be learned on energy resilience for critical national infrastructure'. Advertisement It is expected to report initial findings within six weeks.
Asharq Al-Awsat
22-03-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
UK Govt Orders Probe into Heathrow Shutdown That Sparked Concern over Energy Resilience
The British government on Saturday ordered an investigation into the country's "energy resilience" after an electrical substation fire shut Heathrow Airport for almost a day and raised concerns about the UK's ability to withstand disasters or attacks on critical infrastructure. While Heathrow Airport said it was "fully operational" on Saturday, thousands of passengers remained stuck, and airlines warned that severe disruption will last for days as they scramble to relocate planes and crews and get travelers to their destinations. Inconvenienced passengers, angry airlines and concerned politicians all want answers about how one seemingly accidental fire could shut down Europe's busiest air hub. "This is a huge embarrassment for Heathrow airport. It's a huge embarrassment for the country that a fire in one electricity substation can have such a devastating effect," said Toby Harris, a Labor Party politician who heads the National Preparedness Commission, a group that campaigns to improve resilience. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said he'd asked the National Energy System Operator, which oversees UK gas and electricity networks, to "urgently investigate" the fire, "to understand any wider lessons to be learned on energy resilience for critical national infrastructure." It is expected to report initial findings within six weeks. "The government is determined to do everything it can to prevent a repeat of what happened at Heathrow," Miliband said. Stalled journeys More than 1,300 flights were canceled and some 200,000 people were stranded on Friday after an overnight fire at a substation 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away from the airport cut power to Heathrow, and to more than 60,000 properties. Heathrow said Saturday it had "added flights to today's schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers." British Airways, Heathrow's biggest airline, said it expected to operate about 85% of its 600 scheduled flights at the airport on Saturday. While many passengers managed to resume stalled journeys, others remained in limbo. Laura Fritschie from Kansas City was on vacation with her family in Ireland when she learned that her father had died. On Saturday she was stranded at Heathrow after her BA flight to Chicago was canceled at the last minute. "I'm very frustrated," she said. "This was my first big vacation with my kids since my husband died, and ... now this. So I just want to go home." Shutdown points to a broader problem Residents in west London described hearing a large explosion and then seeing a fireball and clouds of smoke when the blaze ripped through the substation. The fire was brought under control after seven hours, but the airport was shut for almost 18 hours. A handful of flights took off and landed late Friday. Police said they do not consider the fire suspicious, and the London Fire Brigade said its investigation would focus on the electrical distribution equipment at the substation. Still, the huge impact of the fire left authorities facing questions about Britain's creaking infrastructure. The government acknowledged that authorities had questions to answer and said a rigorous investigation was needed to make sure "this scale of disruption does not happen again." Harris, from the preparedness commission, said the airport shutdown points to a broader problem. "The last 40, 50 years we've tried to make services more efficient," he said. "We've stripped out redundancy, we've simplified processes. We've moved towards a sort of 'just in time' economy. "There is an element where you have to make sure you're available for 'just in case.' You have to plan for things going wrong." 'Clear planning failure' Heathrow is one of the world's busiest airports for international travel, and saw 83.9 million passengers last year. Chief executive Thomas Woldbye said he was "proud" of the way airport and airline staff had responded. "The airport didn't shut for days. We shut for hours," he told the BBC. Woldbye said Heathrow's backup power supply, designed for emergencies, worked as expected, but it wasn't enough to run the whole airport, which uses as much energy as a small city. "That's how most airports operate," said Woldbye, who insisted "the same would happen in other airports" faced with a similar blaze. But Willie Walsh, who heads aviation trade organization IATA, said the episode "begs some serious questions." "How is it that critical infrastructure – of national and global importance – is totally dependent on a single power source without an alternative? If that is the case, as it seems, then it is a clear planning failure by the airport," he said. Walsh said "Heathrow has very little incentive to improve" because airlines, not the airport, have to pay the cost of looking after disrupted passengers. 'No back-up plan' Friday's disruption was one of the most serious since the 2010 eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which shut Europe's airspace for days. Passengers on about 120 flights were in the air when Friday's closure was announced and found themselves landing in different cities, and even different countries. Mark Doherty and his wife were halfway across the Atlantic when the inflight map showed their flight from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport to Heathrow was turning around. "I was like, you're joking," Doherty said before the pilot told passengers they were heading back to New York. Doherty called the situation "typical England — got no back-up plan for something happens like this. There's no contingency plan."
The Guardian
11-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
If disaster strikes, will there be enough to eat? Britain should be prepared – but it isn't
'Keep calm and carry on.' We all know that famous second world war poster, don't we? But it's illusory: the poster was never publicly displayed during the war and only discovered by chance decades later. Illusions bedevil our readiness to cope with the crises we might face. Reviewing the state of UK civil food resilience for a National Preparedness Commission report, I found that there is, in fact, scant preparedness going on, and little attention given to involving the public. The official government resilience framework has three sound principles: first, take a 'whole of society' approach; second, prevention is better than the cure; and third, build a shared understanding of the risks. But what does this mean in practice? Not nearly enough. I found the further away from Whitehall I looked, the less people were being engaged. On the morning of 22 May last year, hours before the general election was called, the Conservative MP Oliver Dowden, then deputy prime minister, told a defence industries conference that he wanted everyone in the UK to store three days' worth of food and water. But this is scarcely realistic. For individuals juggling competing financial demands, food is the flexible item in their budget. Fixed costs come first. There are other problems too. The Food Foundation's 2025 Broken Plate report states: 'Healthier foods are more than twice as expensive per calorie than less healthy foods and less available. The most deprived fifth of the population would need to spend 45% of their disposable income on food to afford the government-recommended healthy diet – rising to 70% for households with children.' So with rampant diet and health gaps caused by income inequalities, any notion of a 'whole of society' solution evaporates. The national risk register, the UK's official list of 89 risks facing us, barely acknowledges food. It points to just one risk: food supply contamination, and that's on page 122 in the 2025 document. Yet almost all the expert opinion I canvassed predicted enormous short- and long-term food security challenges ahead. Think energy outages, ransomware attacks, AI/bot attacks, internet failure, chokepoints and trade disruption. Think geopolitical downturn, the spread of war and overt conflicts, and disinformation-led public panics. In addition, there are all the impacts of climate heating: biodiversity loss, too much or too little water, and soil erosion. It may salve the consciences of central government planners to put emergency preparedness advice on to a website, but it is clearly not enough. Two countries I examined, Latvia and Sweden, have developed practical advice. Last year Sweden produced a major reorientation of its food policy and intends to build more diversity into its food system, including creating dispersed national food stores. Sweden is also passing new legislation making it a responsibility of mayors to ensure that all are fed in a crisis. Storage has been central to crisis preparedness throughout human history, but in the modern world only Switzerland retains a national food store. So what should we do? My report argues that public protection depends on action at national, regional, community and household levels. Just telling the public to store food is ridiculous. As interviewees told me, it's a fantasy to think that everyone can look after themselves. Resilience isn't a bolt-on feature. It emerges from how the food system operates, how we relate with each other. For more than half a century, food companies have pursued lean efficiency. The only storage, as the logistics industry told me, is what's on the motorway in delivery lorries. 'Just in time' management hates storage. That's why I propose that we switch to a 'just in case' approach. This needs community action, not just top-down advice. Already there are UK communities, towns and some cities that see the need for this. In Yorkshire, the FixOurFood coalition of communities, suppliers and academics has created a network of advice and knowledge about who can do what now. In Flintshire and Edinburgh community gardeners have trialled alternatives to our dependency on the big retailers. Building community solidarity is a process. Latvians I spoke to said: 'We tell our people that if Russia invades, government will collapse.' This advice is given not to scare people but to focus the public's attention so people know how to help themselves and each other if shocks do come. Every household has a pack of cards containing this information. Rule number one in resilience planning is to try to prevent crises in the first place via a sustainable food system. But rule number two is to help build capacities to bounce back after shocks hit. Things won't be the same. A country that expects food to be on shelves 364 days a year (Christmas Day excepted) just isn't prepared for shocks. The Fair Food Futures Project has been asking communities in Bradford and London's Tower Hamlets to assess what emergency food systems they have by mapping 'community food assets'. I think this is essential. Your local cafe or pub might be where simple meals can be cooked after a shock. At a restricted official meeting I attended last year, we were all asked how many of us had a 'grab bag' – a carrier you can sling over your shoulder to escape when danger strikes, with essentials such as passport, bank details, phone, charger, keys, glasses, medication, child essentials, cash, contact details and food. We were also asked how many of us kept a store for emergencies. Most kept the bag; fewer had an emergency store of food. But then it's easier to prepare a grab bag than it is to lay down heavy and costly stores of food, much less water, which is what you most need in the short term. The Swiss Federal Office for Civil Protection reminds its citizens that they can go without food for 30 days but without water for only three. The truth is that we UK citizens live in a fantasy world – a legacy of the British empire – that someone far away will always feed us. At the same time, business knows that there are shocks ahead too big for even them to handle. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says 2025 is the year it addresses food security and resilience. It must. Only the government can provide the direction that is sorely needed. The public must hold it to account, hopefully before calamity strikes. Tim Lang is professor emeritus of food policy at the Centre for Food Policy, City St George's, University of London
