If the past two years with the war in Ukraine and the recent problems with NATS (National Air Traffic Services) have taught us anything, is a greater need for energy independence and greater resilience in our infrastructure.
In August 2023, our Air Traffic Control systems went into meltdown because, officially, the French were incompetent at data input for flight plans and caused the entire system to collapse. I am not a computer programmer, but I suspect that software engineers who build the NATS systems will have put safeguards in place to prevent this happening. It is more likely, in my opinion, that this system failure runs far deeper than what will ever be admitted. Though, being an Englishman, I do approve of blaming the French.
The one thing it did highlight, was the strategic vulnerability of our infrastructure, one hit against our Air Traffic Control and our airspace was virtually closed down for a few days. What if something similar happened to our railways? Railway signalling, especially on the East Coast Mainline of is entirely digitised and centralised, if it gets taken out, major problems ensue.