The government is planning a major exercise in 2027 to prepare for a possible war.
Households were urged to store three days of water for each person (Image: PA)
A campaign urging Brits to stock up on food and water is “just the start”, with a major publicity drive planned in the coming weeks. Households will be encouraged to buy at least one key item each week until they have completed their stockpile. Shops are already reporting shortages of products such as bottled water, tinned beans and wind-up radios, following the launch of the Government’s “Be Ready” campaign, which urged people to store enough supplies to survive for three days in an emergency.
But Security Minister Dan Jarvis said: “This is just the start. Over the coming weeks, people will begin to see information about what they can do popping up online, on the radio, and out and about in their local community. Over the coming weeks, we will also be sharing toolkits that partners can use to get involved.”
The Government is working with charities and food banks to ensure people on low incomes can stock up, and items “can be ticked off over time by adding one item per week to the weekly shop,” he said.
Several brands of soup and bottled water were sold out on shopping website Ocado earlier this week, following the initial launch of the campaign.
Supermarket chain Iceland saw a 40 per cent increase in sales of tinned products and stores including Maplin said sales of radios, torches and power banks had risen.
Ministers insist the campaign has not been prompted “because of any specific or imminent threat” and the official Government website lists a series of potential problems including floods, drought and terrorism.
But the Government is to run the biggest home defence exercise in decades next year, in preparation for a possible attack on the UK. Hundreds of officials from across government and the public sector will take part in Operation ALBISTON SHADOW multi-day exercise to test how ready the nation’s civilian infrastructure is to deal with conflict. The Government is also working on a new War Book, setting out what actions ministers, officials and local authorities should take during a period of war.
The War Book focused on planning for a nuclear attack during the cold war, but stopped being updated with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. The document is not public and contents of the new version, due to be completed by the end of the year, will be classified.
Mr Jarvis was challenged in the House of Commons by Conservative MP Mark Pritchard, who said that if the Be Ready campaign was about preparing for war then “the Government should just come clean and treat the British public with a little bit more respect”.
The Security Minister said: “This campaign is about taking the simple, straightforward steps to be ready for everyday emergencies such as severe storms or flooding. At the same time, there is significant bandwidth across Government to talk about the other threats we face as a nation, and I think that is what he is referring to.
“Ultimately, what we have to do, and this is done from the centre, is to make sure that we are preparing communities at the local level for the everyday emergencies we have been talking about today, while at the same time making sure that we are properly prepared for the very severe threats we face from countries such as Russia.”
Experts have warned that Russia could “cripple the economy and military” by damaging undersea cables connecting the UK with the rest of the world, following reports that Russia is deploying fishing trawlers to spy on them.