What contingency plans does the Welsh Government have in place for a major incident at Hinkley Point Power Station?
The Welsh Government adopts the lead policy department model to cover all phases of risk assessment, emergency preparedness, response and recovery. This means that lead policy departments are, in general, responsible for leading the strategic response to an emergency via business-as-usual structures or other Welsh Government response mechanisms, if the emergency falls within their policy area.
In the event of a whole system incident or emergency that requires multi agency and cross-government coordination, National Security and Resilience Division would lead on the response, standing up its Command, Control and Communication structures to coordinate.
At the local level, there are well-established, long-running response structures in place to manage incidents and emergencies.
The Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) is a mechanism for category 1 and 2 responders to work collaboratively to plan and prepare for localised incidents and catastrophic emergencies. LRFs work to identify potential risks and produce emergency plans to either prevent or mitigate the impact of any incident on their local communities.
Welsh Government provides support to these local arrangements where appropriate, ensuring effective collaboration and coordination
Similarly, during a major incident in Wales, the Welsh Government will liaise directly with UK Government and other devolved government response structures.
The nature of the handling of the UK Government's response to an emergency occurring in Wales will depend on whether the subject is reserved or devolved. However, for the more serious incidents or wide-impact emergencies, co-ordination and support may be needed from the UK Government.
Where the scale or complexity of an emergency requires this level of support, the UK government may activate its central response arrangements. The level of central government involvement will vary and will depend upon the nature of the emergency and the level of support required. It will range from advice and support from individual Government Departments to the full activation of the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBR) to co-ordinate the support across Whitehall.