DEAD ALERTS?
Tory cuts threaten emergency warnings
MINISTERS fear Britain’s new emergency warning system is about to fall victim to Liz Truss’s spending cuts.
The plan is to send people a mobile phone text if there is a life-threatening event in their area such as floods, fires or terror attacks.
It is due for a nationwide trial before Christmas – but ministers have thrown a spanner in the works. Paymaster
General Ed Argar says that while the “capability is technically ready to launch” there is a question over the cost. He added: “The Government is reviewing all new spending in accordance with the plan for growth.”
The £16million scheme was tried out in Reading and Suffolk earlier this year. It works by sending out a siren alarm from phone masts to mobiles near a disaster area. A text warns users to keep away because of a danger to life.
Similar systems are in use in many parts of the world including the US, France, Greece, New Zealand and Japan, but the UK has never had one.
Labour’s ex-local government minister Mike Amesbury said: “The Government should be using every technological means at its disposal to keep us safe.
“That’s the first duty of every PM so to cut the service would be an abdication of her duty.”
The Covid pandemic spurred Boris
Johnson into action because phone companies EE, Three, O2, and Vodafone had to be enlisted to send out texts urging people to stay at home during the first lockdown.
The warnings, which can go out within 10 seconds of being triggered, take the burden off sending standard texts during a crisis when the system is already overloaded.
They work like radio broadcasts so they do not need the phone numbers of mobiles to reach them.