Flooding: Cornwall

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I accept my noble friend’s point that these things are likely to happen more frequently as a result of climate change. We will continue to talk with local authorities and all others, which is why today we have made an announcement about our response to the Pitt review and the new approach that should be followed to deal with floods and the danger of floods. We will look at new approaches to allow more schemes to go ahead that will attract money not only from the Government, through the Environment Agency, but from all other sectors.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Is not the lesson that we learnt from the floods in west Cumbria, where the noble Lord lives, and Cornwall that the aftermath always brings problems over house insurance costs? Cannot the Government now take a role in co-ordinating meetings with the insurance industry in order to get a better deal for home owners, who are greatly losing out and very often cannot reinsure their properties?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord referred to the floods in Cumbria. I visited Cockermouth only last week on the anniversary of those floods and I was pleased to see the resilience with which the people of west Cumbria, where both the noble Lord and I come from, have dealt with the situation; I imagine that the same will be true of the people of Cornwall, who are equally resilient. He makes a perfectly valid point about insurance and the Government are talking—and will continue to talk—to the Association of British Insurers about how we can deal with these matters.