The Heathrow fire shows Britain has a resilience problem

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The writer is head of risk management policy at The Centre for Long-Term Resilience

Investigators will doubtless need some time to understand the cause of the fire that closed down Heathrow airport on Friday, disrupting more than a thousand flights and affecting some 200,000 travellers. But it doesn’t take long to see how vulnerable the UK is. In this case, an electrical substation in a nearby suburb provided a single point of failure for Europe’s busiest airport.

Hub airports have the energy demands of small cities while, quite rightly, prioritising safety. Heathrow claims that it’s not possible to have in place the energy generation backup required to run its operations safely. That’s not good enough. It needs to establish that alternative supply is available from the grid and can be switched in seamlessly if needed. More broadly, regulators should require that all providers of critical infrastructure regularly assess vulnerabilities and stress test their ability to recover quickly.

As the global outlook continues to darken, policymakers are waking up to the UK’s lack of resilience — not only in the country’s infrastructure, but more broadly across the economy and society. From undersea cables to energy grids, the UK is exposed.

The pandemic should have focused minds, but it seems that few lessons have been learned. A report last week from the Centre for Long-Term Resilience reveals that the UK is in a worse position to respond to biological threats than before Covid-19. Today, the government has very low cross-departmental visibility of key information about where we source pharmaceutical ingredients. It makes taking co-ordinated action very challenging.

However, with the right vision and direction, we can build up resilience. In the 1930s, the government saw through an extensive reorganisation of the state, as laid out in Whitehall, Peter Hennessy’s history of the civil service. We need the same ambition right now — smart rewiring at the top of government, a fundamental change of mindset in the civil service and a response that encompasses all of society.

Resilience must be made a top national priority, accompanied by proper governance. The National Security Adviser, renamed the National Resilience and Security Adviser, should take charge, reporting to the prime minister. We must learn from business and introduce a specialist Chief Resilience Officer to oversee a strengthened risk management process across Whitehall. In addition, as recommended by the Covid Inquiry, an independent external statutory body should be established to scrutinise the government’s work on resilience and challenge groupthink.

Pat McFadden, who leads the Cabinet Office, must drive an entrepreneurial approach to risk throughout Whitehall, ensuring that civil servants learn to embrace, understand and manage risk. As numerous reviews over the decades have all agreed, the civil service needs to draft in private sector talent, reward innovation and agility, and incentivise officials to work across departments. The government has promised reform. It really must now deliver.

But government doesn’t have all the answers. Society also has a part to play. Following Sweden, which has introduced a new mandatory civic duty, the UK could create a civil reservist cadre across the country, focusing on emergency response and cyber defence training. These measures would not only help build the foundations for the country’s resilience, but also give young people much-needed skills and foster a culture of national responsibility.

The government has pledged to spend more on the UK’s armed services and invest in military industrial capacity. This is necessary but not sufficient for the range of extreme risks we face. We need to build a resilient country, just as we have in the past. Fortunately, the fire affecting Heathrow has been extinguished and services have resumed. We may not be so lucky next time.