Flooding Update

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. The farming recovery fund is specifically designed to provide compensation for loss that is currently uninsurable; it particularly relates to agricultural land that has been damaged. I may be wrong but I believe that it does not apply to livestock, which, on the whole, can be insured. We are not yet in a position to determine how big that fund should be or how it should be deployed, because we do not yet have the data on the damage to farmland. The noble Baroness makes a very important point—this is going to be a priority for the Secretary of State when the data comes in.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, climate change is a challenge facing all the regions of the United Kingdom. Flooding has occurred right across the United Kingdom, and the Minister referred to the issue throughout the devolved regions. Will he have immediate discussions with the Defra Secretary of State and consider using the vehicle of the British-Irish Council for an emergency summit with ministerial colleagues throughout the devolved regions, in order to address the impact of climate change and to look at new solutions to flooding?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. The various parties in this House and those who do not belong to any particular party agree that we face a climate emergency; there is already consensus on that. A number of commitments have been made relating to England, and a number relating to the UK. Combined, these are designed to take us towards net zero by 2050. They all involve a major uplift of our focus on nature-based solutions, which have been largely ignored in the climate debate for many years. We should not forget that at the end of this year, Scotland will host COP 26 on behalf of the United Kingdom. We should set ourselves the ambition that that will be the moment when the world finally comes together to move the dial on its collective approach to tackling climate change. There are an enormous number of moments this year where we will be required to work together, both within the United Kingdom and globally, in order to solve this problem.