Lord Kamall
Main Page: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Kamall's debates with the Cabinet Office
(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My noble friend is right, which is why the severe weather resilience network exists. It is led by COBRA and includes Defra, MHCLG, the Department of Health, DCMS, the Department for Education, DESNZ, DSIT, the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence, UKHSA and the devolved Governments, who meet and co-ordinate a response to any and all severe weather events. As the noble Baroness from the Opposition Benches stated, there are no borders in this space, especially with regards to weather, so making sure that the devolved Governments and the devolved space also have a co-ordinated response is key. I am really hoping someone asks me about the weather for the weekend because I can tell the House.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, I am not going to ask the Minister about the weather for the weekend. I am going to ask her about a debate around how we tackle wildfires. There is a view that in order to tackle wildfires we have to remove scrub, but at the same time people believe that that reduces biodiversity. There is clearly a tension in wanting to reduce wildfires while keeping biodiversity. What is the Government’s perspective on that balance and how do we make sure that we land in the right place?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
The noble Lord is right that there are challenges here, as there are in all issues, about how we balance protection and environmental developments to make sure that the answers work for each community. There will be different answers in different parts of the country depending on their land and the local environment. Some of this is a very localised response, which is why we have local resilience forums to make sure that that is working. If the noble Lord has something specific, I am more than happy to come back to him. I would like to reassure noble Lords that this weekend it will be warm with the chance of thundery showers at times with the highest temperatures reaching into the mid to high 20s in the south-east of England.