Corrected oral evidence
Oral evidence, 19 March 2026.
The Chair
Good morning, Your Excellencies. Thank you all very much indeed for coming to help us with our inquiry into national resilience. As you know, this is a public session and we are being broadcast now. A transcript will be sent to you in a couple of days, so if there are any minor factual inaccuracies that you would like to correct, you will have the opportunity to do so then. We have a set of questions that we would like to ask you and I think we have about an hour and a half of your time to get through it all. After I have asked the first question, perhaps when you are answering, you could begin by introducing yourselves and then go into the answer to the question. That is all I need to say by way of introduction. May I remind members of the panel to declare any interests that they have before they speak for the first time today? Thank you. Your resilience and national preparedness are long-standing and we hope to learn a lot from you. However, I would like to ask how the current geopolitical situation is affecting your countries, particularly with regard to Article 5 of NATO, the Ukraine war, and of course most recently the situation in the Middle East. How have those factors impacted on the importance of homeland security and resilience? Perhaps I could start with the Finnish ambassador: in your answer, Ambassador Turunen, could you also look backwards a little, as well as looking forward, and say how the Finnish resilience mindset and activities were influenced and have been sustained, starting from the winter war of 1939?
Teemu Turunen
Thank you, Chair, and thank you very much for the invitation. It is an honour to talk to you and address you as a representative of Finland. Finland obviously, to start with, has a long border with Russia—1,340 kilometres—and that has always been the cornerstone of our preparedness. As an independent nation for 108 years, we have been prepared for that threat. That basic idea of preparedness has basically not been affected terribly much by the differences in current geopolitical status, because this is not something that we have prepared for only for a short period; this is our life. This is where we are, and we have to be prepared for that threat. always. That of course means military preparedness, which has to be strong. That is the foundation pillar of the preparedness: having the deterrents for the main threat, the existential threat, which in our case is from Russia and Russian state actors, but there are also other threats during our history from climate and snowstorms. It is more of a mindset of being prepared. Being prepared for different hybrid threats is another matter. When we think about Russia, the border is not only physical but is also in all our laptops and mobile phones; the adversary could use our weaknesses in cyber defence or our weakness in protecting our critical infrastructure. Thus, it is much more than being prepared on the border nowadays, and the cornerstone of our preparedness lies in civil society preparedness. Businesses need to be ready, and they need to know their role. Every single citizen needs to know their role. This is something that we have been doing for a very long time. We have had a national security of supply agency since 1993, we have had national defence courses since 1961 and we have sent leaflets to our people talking about preparedness and existing threats since 1951. This is something that we are preparing for just in the short term; it is not a sprint, but a marathon. It is more of a mindset than a short period of preparedness.
The Chair
Ambassador Beckvard, would you like to take it up now?
Kristina Beckvard
Yes, and thank you very much for inviting us here. I am the ambassador of Denmark to the United Kingdom. I have been here for half a year. Yes, I think the full-scale and very brutal invasion that Russia made into Ukraine changed the threat perception in Denmark. The assessment of the threat has changed fundamentally, as it has in the rest of Europe, but the threat perception among the population has also changed. Both the Government and the public have changed their perceptions. I think that is fundamental to all the changes that have happened now in terms of the defence budget and resilience. Most visibly, we have doubled our defence budget and we have also set up a Ministry of Resilience and Preparedness. We did that in August 2024 in order to elevate and anchor the co-ordination and coherence of Danish activities to the highest political level. This brutal invasion in Ukraine was also preceded by the Covid crisis and everyone’s slow realisation that we are very vulnerable to supply chain changes and, for many reasons, not just because of the threat of war, we simply have to be stronger and more robust. Further geopolitical dynamics have also meant that we have increasingly understood that it is important to further our homeland security and societal resilience in whole of the Kingdom of Denmark—that also goes for societal resilience in the Faroe Islands and in Greenland, which have preparedness and contingency plans, which take into account their geography, too. We are aware that the Orkney and Shetland Islands are also interested in the Faroese approach. So, something fundamental has happened and we are trying to deal with that as calmly and as collectively as we can and together, the whole of Government and the whole of society are making an effort right now. I am very much inspired, I would say, by Britain and by the expression that you have coined, the phrase, “Keep calm and carry on”.
The Chair
Perhaps that should be the title for our report.
Tore Hattrem
I am also very delighted to be invited to this committee to talk a little bit about how we prepare under uncertain times. Chair, you described the situation that we are in. Of course, the geopolitical situation now is much more tense than it was 10 or 15 years ago, and that is reflected in what the Government and civil society in Norway are doing. We have a total defence concept in Norway and in many ways, that shapes what we are doing. It is not only about the armed forces; it is also about civil society, which plays an important role in supporting defence. I think that the takeaway from this session will probably be, because we in the Nordic countries are organised in a very similar way and our approaches are quite similar, that we do not separate private industry, civil society, independent institutions and defence because we realise that, in the challenges that will confront us in the future, everybody must play their role. As you said, the landscape is darker. We have the war, Russia’s aggression and illegal invasion of Ukraine and the situation in Middle East, which makes us even more eager to focus on increasing our defence capabilities and to strengthen society’s resilience. The Government issued a White Paper on total preparedness in 2025, which sets out a lot of the measures, strategies and approach ahead. The Government also issued a national security strategy in 2025, which is actually quite brief and readable. I think that was helpful in the sense that is easier to spread around in the population for people to understand how the Government see the situation. Our policy in the time ahead is to continue strengthening our military and our efforts to strengthen civil preparedness and resilience in the population. That integrated approach, which I probably do not see in the same way in the UK, might be an important takeaway. The Nordic Council and our Nordic countries can provide you with all kinds of details related to the legislation we have done to ensure that kind of approach, and so on.
The Chair
Thank you. Finally, I turn to Ambassador Gullgren. I should tell you that we have all had copies of and have read the Swedish pamphlet that you had delivered to every household in your country, and we have read it too. Over to you.
Stefan Gullgren
Thank you very much for this opportunity. I brought some extra copies of that pamphlet and I should say that, in addition to the booklet that you might have seen, we have recently published a separate booklet aimed at the business community on how businesses can prepare for a crisis or a situation of war, of which I also brought some copies. I would be happy to share that with the committee. As my Norwegian colleague pointed out, I think we have similar approaches in our countries to the concept of resilience and the concept of civil defence. In our case, of course, the changing geopolitical situation led to a profound change in our security policy, where we, after more than 200 years of not being a member of a military alliance, applied for membership of NATO. That was a big step for us to take on one hand; on the other hand, of course, we had for a long time already, by that time, engaged in close co-operation with NATO countries and with NATO so it was not a situation where we went from complete strict neutrality to NATO membership. It was a period of about 30 years from the end of the Cold War. Nevertheless, that was a significant step. In addition to that, we are in the process of, one might say, reconstituting the system of whole-of-society defence that we had during the Cold War. Since we were not a member of NATO, we had to ensure that Sweden could defend itself and that we could cope with a crisis and a situation of war more or less on our own. This is deeply ingrained in every Swede, certainly in every Swede over 50 years of age, since we lived through it. In my generation, for example, all young men did conscription service, either in the armed forces or in civil functions. We are reconstituting part of that system, which has to be adapted to the new conditions because old solutions are not necessarily the solutions that we need for our current times. In addition to increasing defence spending, in the stricter sense of military spending, we are investing in civil defence. We have had, since 2022, a Minister for Civil Defence, which is a position that we did not have before. Of course, either the Ministry of Defence or the Ministry of the Interior, or in our case the Ministry of Justice, have been responsible for civil defence, but we have not had a position of a Minister for Civil Defence. Now we do. This position is equally ranked to the Minister of Defence and he—because it currently is a “he”—operates within the Ministry of Defence. We are increasing the budget. There is a separate budget for civil defence as part of the overall defence budget, but we have earmarked funding for civil defence. We have also, of course, taken many other steps, which I am happy to go into detail about later as we proceed in this discussion. It is useful to consider what we really mean by “resilience”. I am sure there are many definitions, but I would offer one, which is that it is public support through awareness of risk, readiness to act and trust in institutions. It is also institutional awareness and readiness through planning, training and exercises. It is also investment in infrastructure and financing, which in turn requires public support and trust in institutions. You cannot do one and not the other. I would argue that it needs somehow to begin with public support through awareness, readiness and trust. In our case, we are fortunate to have that because we have a long tradition of thinking about defence as a whole-of-society concept. That is not to say that it is easy to reconstitute a system and have institutions that actually can deliver this but at least it is a beginning. I am happy to go into details if that is of interest to the committee later on.
The Chair
Thank you. I shall hand over to Lord Peach.
Lord Peach
Good morning, Your Excellencies and thank you very much for coming to see us. We all know that geopolitical risks and events are interconnected; we need not debate that. Also, we can all see how conflict in particular has a geo-economic reach beyond borders so my question is relatively simple. We can see that both for the short term and the long term, a disturbed world is here to stay. Do you think that, in all this excellent preparedness and resilience that you have undertaken, there is a role for international co-operation in resilience?
The Chair
Who would you like to answer first?
Lord Peach
Please, ambassador.
Tore Hattrem
Me?
Kristina Beckvard
I think you were looking at Denmark.
Tore Hattrem
There are so many here.
Kristina Beckvard
Thank you very much and thank you for the question. I completely agree that it is quite obvious that all the different kinds of risks that we are facing at the same time are hugely interconnected. The problem is that they are also hugely mutually reinforcing—migrants being used as a tool in geopolitical situations on borders by Russia, for example. All these different things are so interconnected that we have to deal with them in a very holistic way and we have to deal with them together. That goes for all of society. We must in our societies work together across companies, Governments, municipalities, NGOs, religious organisations and so on, and we also have to work internationally. Of course, some of the high dependencies on foreign actors in some areas also constitute a risk. Some of the international co-operation that we are used to in itself constitutes a risk for us now. I would say that our co-operation, and our awareness of the need to co-operate, is very much focused on co-operation with like-minded states that have the same values and interests as we do and the same commitment to the rule of law and international legal systems. We very much focus on European partners, the EU, the Nordics, and NATO. We are both open to and very grateful for the co-operation that we have with the United Kingdom. One example would be when we had the drone incidents in airports in Denmark, which were reported in all the news last October. We were very grateful for the support of our neighbours and also of the United Kingdom. We are dependent on good co-operation with our friends and allies. We must, together, make sure that we defend our international legal systems and the organisations that uphold the rules-based order that protects us all. Denmark is president of the Nordic Council of Ministers at the moment. My good colleague, Tore, from Norway mentioned the Nordic Council of Ministers before. During the Danish presidency this year, resilience has been made one of the main priorities of our work. I just mention a couple of things that the Nordic Council of Ministers is focusing on. One is societal security, in a very cross-cutting and holistic way. We have stronger co-operation amongst the Nordics to improve our security of supply. We are also trying together to increase the resilience and strong civil societies in the Arctic region. We are working towards more robust societies by creating greater resilience and preparedness in the food and agriculture sector and increasing sustainability in the Nordic food systems. We are also promoting exports and productivity, because they also play into having stronger economic resilience and competitiveness. Then there is the additional dimension of social cohesion, which I think is very important to think of. Perhaps the fact that we are all under pressure will make it easier to co-operate and bring forward the feeling of togetherness. In our societies where there are many different groups, perhaps the fact that we are under pressure and there are a lot of threats against us can make us look towards more co-operation among ourselves. Social cohesion is fundamental and we have to create safe and supportive environments for individuals and groups and make sure that everybody is on board and understands the threats as well as the solutions and what they can do together. Of course, Nordic societies are typically characterised by high levels of trust and deep-rooted co-operation, but we can certainly strengthen this sense of community even more and it is more important now than ever before.
The Chair
Who is going to pick that up next?
Teemu Turunen
I agree very much with my Danish colleague. I will make just a few points and give some examples of dependencies, which now in this kind of world and the new rules are often vulnerabilities. Energy is one, in terms of both energy security and energy sovereignty. In our case, even though we are neighbours of Russia, we have never been reliant or dependent on Russian energy and 95% of our electricity in Finland comes from nuclear, wind and hydro. We must make sure that we do not have dependencies that make us vulnerable. Critical minerals are another one where we need to improve our sovereignty together with our allies. We are always considering the supply chains that are needed, but also sovereignty. Finland, for example, opened the first lithium mining company just recently, in February, making sure that we are moving in that direction. Critical technologies are another critical dependency. Of course, when we are talking about AI, quantum technology or related data connectivity, it is not only about one country but it is all of us together in the same supply chains. Our long-term welfare depends on those supply chains, so that is something that we need to be doing together, as that is one part of Europe being stronger. The only way that we can be stronger is by doing it together and being prepared, including at the supply chain level.
Stefan Gullgren
I understand that the question is about co-operation between countries when it comes to resilience. I think there is great scope for sharing experiences and best practice. Although we, in our group of countries, probably have pretty much the same outlook and concepts, including because of our geographical position, not all countries in Europe have this instinctive sense of the need for a resilience concept in our societies. Nowadays, it is not only about where you are located geographically. Many of the threats that we face are not necessarily because we are located in a certain part of the world; I think of cyber threats and other kinds of threats that we can face regardless of where we are. Cyber threats are very much independent of our geographical location. We also have the whole issue of underwater cables, especially for communications and so on. The sharing of best practices is therefore certainly a good area for co-operation. As my Finnish colleague pointed out, when we are considering economic security and security of supply, we must think about what our supply chains look like. Can we ensure diversification, so that we are not dependent on one or a few sources of a critical good or service to make sure that we, at least in our part of the world, have alternative supplies of things that we might need? That is not necessarily even in a situation of war, but in cases where there might be other emergencies. We have all lived through the Covid pandemic and we realised then how important it is to be able to ensure supplies of certain critical good and not to be dependent on supplies that might be at the other end of the world, where transportation systems simply break down because of the pandemic, in that case. Those areas— sharing of practices and experiences and thinking through supply chains and co-operation within existing frameworks—are promising areas for co-operation.
Tore Hattrem
To add some additional nuance, the short answer to the question is absolutely yes. It is absolutely necessary to co-operate across borders to be able to support critical infrastructure. Very concretely, if you look at the North Sea, for instance, which is certainly very relevant for the UK, what you find underwater between our countries are gas pipelines, fibre optics and interconnectors for electricity. All of these are essential infrastructure for our countries, and in this case for your country. The obvious answer is that co-operation is absolutely necessary. If a potential enemy destroys that infrastructure, it will substantially weaken our ability to counter the attack. The good thing, in our case, when looking at Norway and the UK and our long experience of drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea since the end of the 1960s is that we had to develop a lot of technology and instruments to be able to supervise the pipe system and other advanced technology which now can have both civilian and military use (dual-use). and that we can use as a counter-measure. That is something we are doing now, very concretely. Of course, here, mostly British industry is involved, so that is something that is certainly relevant for you. In continuing to develop and strengthen these surveillance and protection activities, in our case, we have bought, and will buy, British frigates. We are a happy buyer and customer for your fantastic Type 26 frigates. These are investments that will add in this way, because they have the necessary surveillance capacities that can be used. In addition, we will be investing in submarines and other vessels so as to be able to survey what is going on underwater and on the water, of course. I should also mention that, if you look at the Nordic region, the whole of Norway borders the Atlantic Ocean. In potential wartime, a lot of things will need to be transported from North America to the Nordic region and will most likely end up in Gothenburg or on the coast of Norway, transported into Sweden in the north and Finland. It is therefore very important, from a war-planning perspective, that you can protect the seaways and ensure that infrastructure can function so that the Nordic countries can be the kind of fighting machine we think we can be, in case the northern flank of NATO is threatened, and of course together with the United Kingdom and other NATO partners.
The Chair
Lady Winterton, do you have a follow-up question before we move on to Lord Marland?
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster
Yes, thank you. Your Excellencies, I am very interested in the issue of attacks on our democracy, cyber attacks, misinformation and so on. I know that Finland came to the OSCE. I am on the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, and I know that Finland made some comments to the OSCE about malign activities. I also went to Moldova to monitor the elections and there was a lot of worry about Russian interference there. Do you have any comments on international action that could be taken? If one country legislates about misinformation and tries to take on some of the tech companies, it is probably necessary for there to be some international action as well. Do you have any plans for legislating in your own countries for that? I noticed “psychological defence” on the brochure that you put out, a lot of which is about saying “make sure that you do not get the wrong information”. It does not directly mention elections, but I wonder whether you ever put anything out at election times to warn people about what can happen in terms of misinformation.
The Chair
Would you like to take that up, Ambassador Turunen?
Teemu Turunen
Yes, thank you for an excellent question. Information is one of the tools that Russian adversaries try to use against us, so it is fundamental to understand that campaign. It is real. There are those campaigns. They are attacking us in the cyber and information sphere, and trying perhaps to change our understanding of the threat. There are bot factories working to that end, and it is as real as it comes. On the Finnish side, we think, first, that it is fundamental that we train our people. Media literacy needs to be very strong. People need to understand what things mean, to be prepared for fake news, to look for and find truth within a sea of lies and to have the tools to prepare themselves. That Is part of the education system in schools as well, which is something that we have needed for a long time. Secondly, I agree that there needs to be an international response, which attributes, clarifies and corrects the wrong information.
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster
Do you think legislation is needed?
Teemu Turunen
Legislation is part of the solution. The question is how to get legislation, and how to make sure that schools are prepared and are using all the tools, so that we can attribute, correct it and say clearly who is responsible for it. Of course, there are different spheres. It could be childcare, for example. Finland was accused of torturing Russian children in Finland some time ago, and we struggled to understand that: “This is not true. How do we make it right?” How do we make sure that the people also understand that, that everybody understands it, including the Russians? We have created our model of how to contrast and make sure that we understand what are genuine campaigns and what are Russian state-orchestrated campaigns trying to move us into a certain direction. It is also important to see that Russia is not an omnipotent power. Russia cannot do everything, all the time, everywhere it wants. Russia’s power is not as strong as it would love us to think. It is important to call it out and say that not every single message or campaign that is not to our liking is a Russian state-orchestrated campaign.
The Chair
Lady Northover’s question comes in here.
Baroness Northover
Can we leap forward a little bit, and expand on disinformation, because I think this is an incredibly important area? The ambassador for Sweden talked about social cohesion, for example. We know that one of Russia’s tactics—and of those from elsewhere—is to undermine cohesion, and it is doing it very effectively. It has targeted misinformation going right across Eastern Europe, right into the EU, and it is in its interest to destabilise the EU and countries across Europe. We have seen it, as we have just heard, in the situation in Moldova and in Romania in their elections. This is a major area in how we deal with resilience. I was struck that you mention this area in your pamphlet in Sweden. There is also exploitation by political parties in some countries of the information that is going out. How do you balance all that? How do you tackle all that? What lessons would you suggest that we need to pick up on, when you have a dynamic political democracy, with self-interest on the part of certain parties, certain groups, to take up some of that misinformation, and use it for their own purposes, and so on, which breaks down that social cohesion? How do you address that enormous risk that we face? Sweden first, please.
Stefan Gullgren
I think that we all have a responsibility to question where we get the information and whether we really can trust it. That is not to say that we should not trust any source of information, but it is good to ask the questions “Where does this information come from” and “Is it real?” Part of this can be already part of the curriculum in schools, in the education system, but part of the solution is also to have a debate about it. An additional way of dealing with it is to put in place institutions that have, as their function, to monitor, for example, disinformation campaigns. That is one of the steps that we have taken. Since 2022, we have had a Psychological Defence Agency. It is inspired by a similar body that was called the Psychological Defence Board, which was established in the 1950s and operated until 2008, when we closed it down. Now we have re-established it, more or less, with similar functions.
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster
It would be useful to have information about these things that you are mentioning, as well as what was mentioned earlier about what is being done in Norway. If you could send that through to us, that would be very helpful.
Stefan Gullgren
Yes. I should say something about this agency. The name can lead one to think that this is some kind of propaganda outlet, which it is not. It has a very specific task. It is—I read now from what it says on the agency’s website—to strengthen society’s capabilities “for detecting and resisting malign information influence directed at Sweden by antagonistic foreign powers”. It is something that comes from the outside, from an antagonistic power, to influence with malign information. One task of this agency is to monitor whether there are such campaigns directed at Sweden, and then raise awareness about them. Another, and very important, task is to assist other agencies, municipalities, companies, organisations and society at large in their efforts to build awareness of the fact that such campaigns can be directed at Sweden and that one needs to be aware of them. I would argue that one effective way of dealing with it is to discuss it, raise awareness and, if possible, attribute where this information comes from. This is, of course, particularly important in times of elections. We have elections coming up in Sweden later this year and there is already, as part of the information to Swedish households and citizens, a reminder that we need to be aware of the fact that some antagonistic powers might want to use this opportunity to influence our democratic process.
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster
Could we have a copy of that?
Stefan Gullgren
Yes. Part of it is in this booklet that I think you already have.
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster
The booklet does not refer to the elections. It would be interesting to see what you put out there.
Stefan Gullgren
I do not think we are going to publish any specific booklet on this, but it will be part of the information by the election authority, and I think the Psychological Defence Agency will also conduct information campaigns about it. It is not that we have seen, so far, any indication of an organised attempt to influence our elections, which take place in September, but examples from other countries show that this can happen and, as we know, it does happen.
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster
And Finland? Perhaps I could go along, just because I think it is incredibly important to draw out what people are doing.
The Chair
We need to hear from Denmark and Norway as well.
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster
Yes.
Tore Hattrem
I will address your question as well and these are nuances. I think that what my Swedish colleague said also reflects our approach. I guess that the House and Parliament here will be confronted with some difficult dilemmas and choices about using legislation that might be challenging with regard to freedom of expression and all the concerns that will be important for a Parliament. In Norway, we have just come to the conclusion that we cannot really outlaw false information. At the end of the day, a lot of people will say stuff that is not true and we have to rely on the strength and vitality of our civil society that those who come up with disinformation and things that are utterly untrue will be revealed in a sober public debate. Our Government issued a strategy called Strengthening Resilience to Disinformation, which is mostly about the efforts of society and within the spheres of public debate. Of course, Governments can do stuff as well, but it is not weighted towards legislation because we have that continuous debate in Norway about democracy, about freedom of speech, which is something we really need to preserve. The Norwegian approach is very much similar to Sweden’s, with an emphasis on transparency. It is also interesting to note that no foreign state actor has tried to influence any Norwegian election. I think one of the reasons is basically that they know that it will be discovered and that it will hurt their own interests. It will not work, because they know that our sort of society is pretty healthy in knowing what is going on and that we have mechanisms; therefore, they see it as counterproductive to try, compared to what they do in other east European countries, as an example. I think that is useful knowledge for the Lords to take with you in your debate.
The Chair
Thank you. Denmark?
Kristina Beckvard
I agree with everything that my colleagues have said, which is very typical for Nordic ambassadors. We agree very much because we think very much alike. I think that we always think very much alike with the British as well, because much of this is a question of common sense. We also try through campaigns and through talking to the public to make people more aware of the need to be critical. We gave out a brochure very recently. We have elections at the moment; we will have our parliamentary elections on 24 March. This brochure has just come out, and it is really about the total preparedness of our society. An important part of that is to be critical as a citizen. What can you do as a citizen? You can start collecting things and have water, food, medicine, hygiene, means of communication, cash and so on, but you also have to be really critical about any information you get. We have also established an agency for resilience, and part of its work is also focused on disinformation. The agency has issued a website that makes it very easy for schools and other places where people have a dialogue about being critical about democratic resilience. Its homepage is “Be Critical” and says, “Stop, think, and check your source”. We are trying to massage that into the thinking in our population. I would say that this is something that we can have a dialogue about between nations. We were asked earlier, “How can we co-operate?” I know that, for example, our Parliament is interested in talking to you, including talking to the Electoral Commission about its experience. We had planned a visit of our Speaker and all the Vice-Chairmen of our Parliament. They were supposed to come over but, because of the elections, they unfortunately had to cancel their visit. One of their meetings was to be to talk to the Electoral Commission about the topic that you have been mentioning. We must continue the dialogue. I do not think anyone has found the right balance yet between exactly what you say about protecting what we have, the freedom of expression and talking together, and finding out how to make sure that people do not get misinformation.
The Chair
Thank you. Now I think we need to circle back and let Lord Marland ask his question, which he is been waiting very patiently to do.
Lord Marland
You have covered a lot of what I was going to ask. You are a long way ahead of the curve as countries in terms of whole-society resilience, and I congratulate you. I am struck by your having a Ministry of Resilience. That is a very good idea, which I take away. I have two questions. First, how in the end, when you have distributed this information and created this environment of people trying to understand, will you measure success? Secondly, how much of your GDP are you committing to this whole-society or national resilience programme that you have enunciated so well? Perhaps I can start with you, Ambassador Beckvard, if you do not mind.
Kristina Beckvard
It is incredibly difficult to measure the effort you make when it comes to resilience in terms of GDP because the whole point, in our way of thinking, is that resilience has to come from everyone: citizens, companies, civil organisations, municipalities and the Government. We cannot really measure it, but it is a very good question because we understand that we need to spend on it because there is a cost to these things.
Lord Marland
You have mentioned that you have doubled your defence spending, for example.
Kristina Beckvard
Yes, we have doubled our defence spending and, on 20 February, our Government announced that they would be spending £139 million on a list of investments that we would have to make. That list included very concrete things, but it is not the end. It is not enough, but it is a beginning. For example, there will be money for the emergency supply of power to different institutions. Those things cost, so you are pointing to a very important point. It costs money to do this, but it is not just because of the risk of war. There are many different situations that could lead to us not having any electricity in a nursing home, school or block of buildings. There are so many reasons to do it. You asked how we will measure it, which I think is even more difficult to answer. How do you measure whether the whole of society is engaged, and whether we are all doing our bit to prepare for a potential crisis? I think it is impossible, actually, to measure, but I think the fundamental thing to understand for us as societies is that it does cost. It requires investment and, because of that, it is even more important to have the dialogue with citizens about the fact that there is a threat, the fact that there are solutions and the fact that everybody has their role to play and can do something about it. It is very urgent for all of us to have that dialogue with our societies, even though it is sometimes difficult, because you do not want to create too much alarm but you do want to create awareness and the willingness to spend resources.
The Chair
Can I chip in? Have you experienced any resistance to spending on resilience from people who might say that they would rather the money were spent on health or welfare? If there is that level of resistance, how do you counter it so that you sustain what you think is the right level of GDP on resilience?
Kristina Beckvard
In our population, the question is not so much about whether it is necessary to do the spending; it is more a question of who has to spend the money. Should it come from extra allowances from the Government or should it mainstreamed into things we have to do anyway? For example, when we build a new building block, should we be thinking about an emergency room where you can escape to in situations, or should you have extra power? Should we be thinking about that? Should it be the Government, municipalities, companies, and so on? There is not so much doubt around the question of whether it is necessary.
The Chair
That is good; thank you.
Stefan Gullgren
Perhaps I can add some facts and figures on that. First, measurement is always a problem, is it not? How do you measure effect? One requirement that can be measured in a way is that, as part of civil defence planning, all public authorities and municipalities must have a civil contingencies plan, and they need to report that they have it; then, of course, there also need to be exercises putting that plan into practice. Historically, the picture has been mixed when it comes to those plans. There is now a more widespread realisation that we need to have them. If we do not have them, we do not know how to deal with situations as they occur—and, as I said earlier, they might not necessarily be of a military character. Cyber attacks happen. We have examples of cyber attacks on smaller municipalities that have been very vulnerable to them. This has raised awareness that there needs to be proper cyber protection in place, and you need a plan for how you will deal with that and make the necessary investments. When it comes to funding, part of civil defence is, of course, funded through regular budget items, such as infrastructure. When you invest in a new road or upgrade an old road, you do it not only because of building resilience, but resilience is an effect of it. Earmarked funding for the 2026 military defence budget amounts to £14 billion, and the civil defence budget is £1 billion. One should put that in perspective: as recently as 2022, the civil defence budget was only about £200 million. It is a five-fold increase in four years. We continue, and will continue, to grow the defence expenditure budgets for the years to come. Let me give an example of how this money is being used. We have 64,000 air raid shelters in Sweden. They can house around 7 million people. They are a legacy from the Cold War. A large number of them are housed in residential buildings. Recently, they have probably been used more as storage facilities than for being ready for air raids, but they are there. They need to be inspected; they must meet standards. Part of the funding for civil defence is to inspect them and make the necessary improvements to them. This—inspecting all the shelters and expanding their capacity—is supposed to be done by 2030. It is also an effort that builds trust in the sense that it is being done, people know that it is being done, it is being done in buildings where people live and people see that there is not only a plan but measures to put that plan into practice if necessary. It builds trust in the system; obviously, that requires increasing funding in and of itself because people need to feel confident that the money is being spent well.
Teemu Turunen
This is an excellent discussion. Starting on the shelter side, this is something for which Finland very much is, and must be, prepared. We have more than 50,000 shelters for 4.8 million people. We are 5.6 million people; the rest will probably be fighting on the border, so that is where we will need the rest of it. In our case, because this is everyday life, it is never going away. It is about understanding that the threat is there and is not changing. We have to be prepared. We use the shelters every day as sports arenas. I have played football in those arenas. From car parks to swimming halls, they are in everyday use; they are part of everyday life. They are cosy and handy because, when it is minus 20 degrees upstairs, you can go downstairs and play football. In our case, they need to be there all the time. I agree with my colleagues: it is impossible to put a number on how much we are putting into resilience or preparedness. A big part of the system are the businesses being prepared, from nuclear plants to financial institutions. There was a story on the BBC today about how supermarket chains in Finland are prepared. We are obliging the supermarkets. There is a legal obligation. They need to be prepared. They need to have storage. They work closely with our National Emergency Supply Agency on always having that preparedness and security of supply there. On the government side, it is not only about putting money in; it is about trust and creating that will and understanding that we have to choose. If we know that the threat is there, , if we want to be Finns and if we want to have an independent country in future, we need to be there and be prepared. The more prepared we are, the less our neighbour will have an appetite for coming after us. There is one point here on percentages. Finland has increased its defence expenditure significantly as well, but we have to be smart, are we preparing for the right threats? Do we understand our adversary? What is their plan? What are they preparing? Is it a military attack? Is it a non-military attack? Is it a cyber attack? Is it destroying our societies from within or information warfare? Understanding what their plan is, what direction they are going in and whether we are preparing our defences in the right places is important. Secondly, when we talk about percentages, if we are spending 5%, 6% or 7%of our gdp,it does not matter if we do not feel the will to defend our country—that is, the will to defend and to fight. That is part of the system. It is not just innate in all Finns, but the whole society is being prepared. Of course, it is part of history and part of where we are geographically, but it is also something for which government institutions can prepare, involving businesses, civil society, NGOs and museum leaders, everyone in society. They need to be part of the national defence coursesand be involved beforehand. A large percentage of Finns who are in a decision-making position have gone through the national defence courses, which were established in 1961. Every year, there are several of them; around 200 people have gone through those courses every year for 60-plus years. It means that there are interconnections between people in decision-making positions in government and in business, as well as between journalists, parliamentarians and other leaders. They have been on the same courses, and they have a similar awareness of the threat.
The Chair
Ambassador Hattrem, do you want to add something here? After we have heard from you, we will have four more questions to ask you, so we will need to be briefer with both our questions and our answers if we are not to detain you for too long.
Tore Hattrem
I will be very brief. When it comes to defence, we are at 3% and on our way to 3.5%, which is the NATO target. When it comes to civilian resilience infrastructure, it is 1.5%; it is up to 5% in a NATO country. The answer is that we do not have an exact measure of how much we have done. I have some advice for the committee. I would assume that NATO might have done some calculations of, first, what this 1.5% consists of; and, secondly, what could be considered as an investment part of it. It has a dual use, which will be useful for British society, in your case, preparing for something independently. There is probably some accessible research out there that might be helpful for the committee so that you can break this down: “We have to do X, but this is a dual-use thing. It will be independently useful for society. It will be useful infrastructure for us”. That could be a way forward.
Baroness Curran
I will be brief; I will shorten the questions I was going to ask. Thank you so much, Your Excellencies, for your information so far. It has been wonderful. May I just say, as a resident of the west of Scotland, that we appreciate the Type 26 frigates deal we have with Norway? I must put that on the record. I am interested in what you have had to say about total defence and the mindset we all need to go through. We are going through major changes, from climate change through to war, and the public are beginning to understand that. We live in different communities, of course; look at the differences between the voluntary sector, the public and private sectors, and community sectors. Do they need distinct approaches in order to alter the mindset and bring them into total defence? Can you tell us something—you began to tell us about some of this—about the training that you undertake with the voluntary, public and private sectors?
The Chair
Brief answers, please. Do not all feel obliged to answer the question, but are any contributions on that one?
Stefan Gullgren
I can say something, especially on the second question. In a way, you may not need a different message, but you need to be aware of the fact that people of my age and above know and remember when, during the Cold War, every young man did a conscription service in either the armed forces or civil defence functions. Younger people do not have that memory. Very young people are now more aware of the fact that you cannot always expect everything to function as it used to because they lived through the pandemic; they may have gone to school during the pandemic. People between those two generations might not have that instinctive reaction or memory, which makes it easier for them to take in the fact that things can happen and they need to be prepared for it. We conduct opinion polls on how people feel about defending the country, even at their own risk. There is a certain difference between the age groups, but it is not dramatic. When it comes to recruitment, we have reactivated our conscription system. It is not as large as it used to be during the Cold War because we have different types of armed forces now. During the Cold War, we could fully mobilise 800,000 men and women—around a tenth of the population. That is not the kind of armed forces we are building now. Every year, around 100,000 young men and women have to fill in a medical form and self-estimate their fitness to serve. Then there is a process where, in the end, we take in around 8,500. So far, almost everyone accepts the fact that they have to serve if they are called up. In fact, if they do not, they might risk going to prison; so it is not a voluntary choice, but almost everyone accepts it. We have very good recruitment to the Home Guard, which is the territorial force. This is also an indication of the fact that people from various age groups, including young people, understand that they have to make a contribution to the defence of the country. We also have the Total Defence Duty Act, which obliges everyone who resides in Sweden—Swedish citizens or foreigners who reside in Sweden—between the ages of 16 and 70 to serve in civil defence functions if they are required to do so by the Government. The Government have activated this legislation with a view to certain sectors—most recently, emergency services and electricity supplies. The way it works in practice is that, if you are an electrician, you will not necessarily be called up because you are already an electrician. If you have been an electrician in the past and are now doing something else, you are part of registers where, if you have certain competencies, you will be asked to undergo certain training, with a view to serving if necessary.
Baroness Curran
Are people willing to be mobilised on that basis?
Stefan Gullgren
People are ready to do that.
Baroness Curran
They have the mindset?
Stefan Gullgren
Yes. The point I am trying to make is that, even if there are some differences between different generations and age groups—
Baroness Curran
Is there a gender difference?
Stefan Gullgren
The only gender difference that one can detect from the opinion polls is on the question, “Are you ready to defend the country at the risk of your own life and with arms?” More men than women are prepared to do that. On the other hand, there is no difference when it comes to serving in civil defence functions.
Baroness Curran
That is interesting.
Stefan Gullgren
Interestingly, there is also no difference between Swedes who are born in Sweden and Swedes who have immigrated to Sweden. There is no significant difference between those groups either.
The Chair
Does anyone else want to come in on this one, or do you want to move on to the next question?
Kristina Beckvard
Did you ask about training?
Baroness Curran
Yes; I am particularly interested in the training on the civil side, rather than conscription.
Kristina Beckvard
Perhaps I should add that, having taken inspiration from our Nordic friends, we have adopted a week of training on resilience and preparedness. For example, this year, in week 19, we will undertake a week of training for the first time. We will test various measures and activities, which will then be used in future training. It also sends a symbolic message: everybody will know, “This week, we will train for our civil and national preparedness”. It is a very important way of raising awareness and making different organisations aware of the fact that they need to prepare. It will get minds to start thinking. A lot of this has to do with changing the mindset of people and populations, who have a responsibility to think. We think that a little training and a little preparation are a lot better than no training and no preparation. I can go into conscription a little deeper, if you like.
The Chair
We will come back to that.
Teemu Turunen
Finland is a front nation. We have a very long border with Russia. I was explaining the national defence courses that we have for leaders. The same happens at a regional level and a local level, these courses have joint exercises. Businesses and civil society are involved at a local level. One example from the voluntary sector in Finland is the Women’s National Emergency Preparedness Association, which has more than 100,000 members. The will to defend the country and to prepare for threats is very strong. In the Finnish case, the will to defend our country by arms is around 80%. It is the highest in Europe. Of course, it is based on how our society is built and on trust to government institutions and on each other. On the conscription side, roughly 1 million men and women out of a population of 5.6 million have done military service, including myself; we have all done it. It is very much part of being prepared. Then there is a reservist exercise going on all the time for the people who have done it; some are voluntary and some are obligatory.
The Chair
Lord Spellar, I hope your supplementary is extremely quick.
Lord Spellar
It certainly is. Once again, you mentioned the length of your border. To what extent is there an understanding among the public of the threat there and the creation of a willingness to consider moving away from the Ottawa treaty as a result? What impact does that have on a real understanding of immediate threat, which is determined by geography as much as by anything else?
Kristina Beckvard
This is about landmines, yes?
Teemu Turunen
Ah, yes, the landmines treaty. The Finnish Parliament’s decision to withdraw from Ottawa is part of the deterrent and Finland being prepared for our neighbour. Of course, we do not think that the military threat is acute at the moment; we are not worried or panicking about it. We know where we are. This is our country. It is always been there. This is the neighbour we will always have. The more prepared we are, the more tools we have for that; it is about making sure that our neighbour stays on their side so that we can stay on our side.
The Chair
We must move on now.
Lord Farmer
Thank you, Your Excellencies, for coming today. This has been a very informative session. We were talking about borders. You all have a border threat because of the border with Russia. We do not. What do you think we should do? In a way, you have a level of survival anxiety among your population that makes it easy to have national resilience. With us, we have comfort from the Second World War. We are more concerned with domestic issues; we do not sense this existential threat. How can we motivate the UK population to look beyond our narrow interests? How do we encourage public participation in resilience measures? You mentioned shelters. If we started talking about shelters, it could catch the public imagination that a hypersonic missile could be coming in and that that is what we should be looking at. We are in a different position to you so we would like your advice on how we can move towards your present state of affairs, rather than staying in ours.
Tore Hattrem
We use a certain common vocabulary that might be helpful in giving advice, since you are asking. It is to do with the total defence concept and preparing for that, as well as the need to bring in civil society and private industry. One cannot compartmentalise and say, “This is the responsibility of the Armed Forces, so please leave us all out of it”. The approach needs to encompass the whole of society; at least, that is our experience. In our case, the end of the Cold War did not change that much, as compared to in other parts of Europe. When you border Russia, it is a genetic and historical experience among the Nordic countries: “Well, it’s a benign Russia now, but that won’t necessarily be the case in 30 years”. Therefore, a lot of that Cold War legislation was kept. We kept the conscription system, although we toned it down. As my Swedish colleague said, we did not use as many soldiers during the more friendly period, let us say, between 1990 and 2008. Then it is easy, because everything is there; the legislation is there. It is much easier to wake up what you had. In your case, it might be more challenging, because you will have to rewrite stuff you had back in, say, 1939 or 1940. The Nordic countries will be more than happy to interact with Parliament and the United Kingdom and give advice in the years ahead. That is the best possible advice I can give: you cannot see armed forces in isolation.
Stefan Gullgren
When we published this booklet for the first time—in the 1960s, I think it was—it was called In Case of War. Now, when we republish it, it is called In Case of War or Crisis. The point is that not all threats are military; that might be a way of going about it. In this country, as in other countries, we experience the effects of cyber attacks. There are recent examples of cyber attacks in this country affecting grocery chains, and there was an attack against a well-known automobile manufacturer. These attacks do not depend on geography and affect everyday life for a very large number of people. One way of going about it is to raise awareness through that channel rather than talking about air raid shelters and incoming hypersonic missiles, which might be more difficult.
Kristina Beckvard
Thank you for the question, Lord Farmer. The reason why Denmark is lagging a bit behind Sweden and some of our other Nordic neighbours in terms of our preparedness—we are a year behind, but we are trying to catch up—is because of the difficulty in approaching the dialogue that you need to have with your population. You need to talk to them about what the threat is and present solutions. You need to ask, “What do we want to do?”, so that people do not panic. We do not have a direct border with Russia but the threats are so diverse, as we have said. Hybrid attacks are happening to everybody. They are happening here as well. You also have, in addition to the cyber attacks, drones flying near your airports once in a while, and sometimes there are things happening at sea too. How to have that dialogue with the population is something that we all need to address. I am just looking at our brochure. It came out a couple of years after the Swedes’ one, but we have one; it is called Be Prepared for a Crisis. It starts off by saying, very calmly, “Denmark is fundamentally a safe and secure country. We live in one of the world's most advanced and digitalised societies with a well-developed and integrated infrastructure, which means we have stable access to basic necessities such as electricity, water, heating, communications and food. But”—now the dialogue starts—“our modern society is also vulnerable. This is especially true in crisis situations”. It then slowly explains this to the reader; every citizen gets the brochure in their house. It says, “A power outage in one area can have major consequences in others. This includes access to electricity, water and basic necessities for any length of time. Whatever the cause of a crisis, you”—that is, the citizen or the company—“can play an active role in ensuring that you, your household and society get through it”. That is how we start the debate.
Lord Farmer
That is very helpful. Is the brochure in every household?
Kristina Beckvard
Yes.
The Chair
We will need copies of that one as well. Lady Mobarik has a quick follow-up question.
Baroness Mobarik
Thank you, Your Excellencies. Following on from that, what recent stress threat—cyber, energy or security—has most challenged your national resilience systems? What changed as a result?
The Chair
Who would like to start?
Baroness Mobarik
I have one other tiny question for Ambassador Turunen. You have had this preparedness for a very long time. How do you sustain that level of public engagement without creating either fear or fatigue, which could be another problem?
The Chair
Can I just check that you are all comfortable with another 10 minutes here? Is that all right? Thank you.
Tore Hattrem
I have a concrete example. We had a cyber attack against our Parliament some years ago, which left a deep impression on the population. More or less in the same period, several companies were also doing sensitive stuff; it was all over the newspapers. Obviously, that kind of information makes people aware that there is a continuous cyber threat against us. Of course, the countermeasures are getting better and better, so these things get less attention from the population because companies and government institutions are more or less able to counter a lot of what happens daily. However, one needs regularly to revisit how many times it has happened to maintain that preparedness level in the population.
Kristina Beckvard
A number of things have sharpened the population’s focus, but there was that attack in 2017—the NotPetya attack, which was a cyber attack against Ukraine that spread in circles across the internet. It cost a shipping company, Maersk—it is one of our biggest companies in Denmark and one of the world’s largest container shipping companies—millions of pounds. If you count it in Danish kroner, it was billions. This was malware disguised as ransomware that spread. It was an eye-opener for many companies: you can lose so much if you are not prepared for cyber attacks. Of course, there were also the explosions in the Baltic Sea of the Nord Stream pipelines, which alerted people to be aware that there are hybrid attacks going on all the time.
Teemu Turunen
In our case, there have been several cyber attacks. This may also answer the other question on how Finland keeps the level up. Our neighbour has been keeping the conscience very high with their cyber attacks, using immigrants on our border and instrumentalised immigration towards our border.. They have been a constant threat to critical infrastructure in Finland. We have seen some of our important data cables between Finland and Estonia, or between Sweden and Finland, being cut in some areas. There have been constant hybrid-type activities happening around Finland and around our Nordic neighbours. We have learned lessons from that. For example, in our system, after the first cable-cutting incident, we created and improved something fundamental: co-operation between different authorities, including border guard, police, military and civilian intelligence. They all need to work in symphony; there need to be co-ordinated efforts. How do we use that intelligence in foreign and security policy, and how do we strengthen that link? When we talk about a threat to critical infrastructure, we also need to talk about undersea infrastructure and the shadow fleet for example. What is the role of the shadow fleet for Russia, and what can affect it? Of course, this analysis needs to happen together with other allies and countries. How do we do that all together? We are very much learning, together with our allies, how to react and improve our preperedness to all the hybrid activities.
The Chair
Ambassador Gullgren, what would you pick out?
Stefan Gullgren
I mentioned an example before. One very small municipality in the very north of Sweden was attacked by a cyber attack last year. It turned out to be ransomware. It was an eye-opener not only for the other municipalities but in terms of the fact that you do not have to be an obvious target to be targeted. You need to have proper cyber defence protection in place; otherwise, you run into big problems, especially if you are a small entity. This is partly the reason, but not the only reason, for this booklet on preparedness for businesses, which we distributed to 130,000 businesses at the beginning of this year. How do you prepare as a business, especially if you are a small business? You are a very important part of the supply chain, of course, even if you are just a small business.
The Chair
Lady Hunter, do you feel that your question has been partly covered? Do you have the other half of it?
Baroness Hunter of Auchenreoch
I do. I just want to say that this booklet is absolutely brilliant. We have nothing like this in our country. I read it and learned how to deal with pets and human excrement. Listening to you has been fascinating. With your knowledge of the British people and this compulsory nature that you have in getting people to put their shoulders to the wheel—it is a brilliant thing because it adds to social cohesion, of which I am a very big fan; I am quite a fan of compulsory things, too—do you think that such a thing is possible here? If so, how? The other thing I thought is that this private sector thing is brilliant as well; we will have to put it into our report.
Stefan Gullgren
Yes.
The Chair
We shall.
Kristina Beckvard
I totally think that it is possible—absolutely. It is perhaps even more possible here than anywhere else in the world because of your common sense, your calmness and your values.
Baroness Hunter of Auchenreoch
We used to be so.
Lord Farmer
Yes.
Kristina Beckvard
I think of Churchill’s city gardening and so many other things. That was resilience, too—making sure that there was food on the table, and you got that food from gardens in London. It is absolutely possible. We all have a responsibility to contribute to inspiring the UK but also, as I have mentioned before, to take inspiration from the UK to our countries. We have made a point of this in our bilateral co-operation, which is what I am in charge of; I cannot do everything, but I am supposed to be the one leading our bilateral co-operation here from the embassy in London. What I have done, together with my team, is make resilience a cross-cutting theme—that is, the overarching word for all our work. This is because we can help raise awareness here, but we can also point to the solutions. Whether it is across what we are doing anyway, such as on security and defence investments, our green transition and green energy investments, health, which we invest in together, digitisation, social policy or migration—whatever topic—resilience is such a fundamental factor that we have to discuss it. It is even motivating; that is why I am talking about social cohesion. In my embassy, I feel that it is motivating for people to feel that they are contributing—not only to our own sector of green energy, for example—and that we are making more robust and prepared societies in the UK and in Denmark.
Lord Farmer
It is boosting mental well-being.
Kristina Beckvard
Yes, it is boosting mental well-being as well. That is something we did yesterday. We had the youth commission from Denmark talking about resilience in our youth. Resilience has become the overarching priority for us.
The Chair
Baroness Northover has a tiny question.
Baroness Northover
It is a very specific one for the ambassador from Finland. I was incredibly impressed to discover at a conference in Finland a few years ago that you have people from the Finland Futures Research Centre in every ministry trying to look forward and work out what challenges might be coming down the track. I do not know whether that is still the case. It was incredibly impressive to see the effect of it. If it is still there, can you let me know? If not, was that a political decision, and what does that say about consensus? Are you thinking about it again, if it is not?
The Chair
Please be brief.
Teemu Turunen
Yes, the Futures Research Centre—it is called Sitra —is still there and going strong. We would be happy to share more information on it if you would like us to do so.
The Chair
That is fantastic; it might be useful to have something in writing from you afterwards as a follow-up. This feeds in very nicely to our last question, which is going to be asked by Baroness Helic.
Baroness Helic
Thank you very much for your presentations. I will make two very quick observations, if I may. First, it is really refreshing to see neighbours looking to each other rather than looking away from each other and working against each other; that is excellent. Secondly, I am impressed, if I picked this up correctly from the Finnish ambassador, that you set up your security supply agency in 1993, when Yeltsin was the president of Russia and there were no wars in Europe; there was a war in Bosnia and a war in Rwanda, and Chechnya did not start until 1994. That means you knew something that we did not, which brings me to my question. If each of you could give the United Kingdom Government one piece of advice, what would it be?
Tore Hattrem
Basically, it would be to ensure that the public understand the gravity of this and what is necessary, and to take a whole-of-government approach. That encapsulates the story of the Nordic countries—you can fill in a lot of that, but that would be my advice.
Kristina Beckvard
Try to make sure that the mindset of the population, as well as that of the authorities and companies, is changed and ready so that you think about preparedness and resilience in everything you do.
Teemu Turunen
I will continue the same line; I agree with my colleagues, obviously. Awareness is the first thing. Obviously, you are already focusing on it now. Then there is what we are doing right now, which is good and fundamental: taking a whole-of-society approach, including the businesses and civil society You mentioned the NESA—the National Emergency Supply Agency—in 1993, dealing with 1,500 critical companies. You cannot prepare at the moment when it is really needed; you have to be prepared before that. The sooner you get started, the further you go. In 1993, at the time, we perhaps thought that it was too late, but it is never too late to get started.
Stefan Gullgren
Coming back to what I said in the beginning, it needs to begin with public support. You build that through raising awareness of the risks and instituting procedures, plans, institutions and so on. You convince people that something will be done, but also that they have to be part of that—it is not something that someone else will do for them. If you have awareness of risk, readiness to act and trust in institutions, which require investment in institutions, you will also, I would argue, get an acceptance of the fact that this is going to cost money. It is going to cost money. Nobody wants to be told what to do—I would argue that no citizens in any democracy want to be told what to do by the Government—but we are ready to do what is required if we understand why. This is where it needs to begin.
The Chair
Thank you, Your Excellencies. You have given us a great deal of food for thought; we are very grateful indeed. We have much to learn from you. I thank you on behalf of us all for your time and your insights.