Northern Ireland Office: National Security
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, with reference to paragraph 88 of the policy paper entitled UK Government Resilience Action Plan, published on 14 July 2025, how many meetings have been attended by civil servants within their Department in relation to the Home Defence Programme; which directorate in the Department owns the Departmental contribution to the Home Defence Programme; and what the job title is of the civil servant leading and cohering the Departmental contribution to the Home Defence Programme.
Answered by Hilary Benn
The Resilience Action Plan sets out the Government’s strategic approach to how we will strengthen our domestic resilience and invest to protect the nation. Northern Ireland Office (NIO) officials regularly attend meetings to discuss the implementation of the Resilience Action Plan as well as matters of national security and defence.
NIO directorates are actively contributing to this work, engaging the defence industry, businesses and academia to evaluate Northern Ireland’s defence sector contribution. We are also collaborating with partners to assess and strengthen collective preparedness against emerging threats. These efforts are jointly led by the Director of Security, International and Politics and the Director of Growth, Public Service Transformation and NI Fiscal Sustainability.
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