Alistair Carmichael
Main Page: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)Department Debates - View all Alistair Carmichael's debates with the Cabinet Office
Extreme Weather Events: Resilience
Alistair Carmichael Excerpts(11 months, 1 week ago)
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Alex Burghart
As the hon. Lady will have heard me say earlier, the Cabinet Office has a co-ordinating role that brings together lead Government Departments and local responders. It would be under that guise that different Government Departments would meet to discuss issues of the sort that she describes.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Even by the standards of what we are accustomed to in the northern isles, the last week has been exceptionally disruptive. I associate myself with the previous expressions of gratitude to the road staff, electricity engineers and others who have gone about their jobs, and to those who are responding even though it is not part of their job. The response of farmers, who just get on with clearing the snow with a bucket on the front of their tractor, has been phenomenal. Is this not a moment to pause and reflect that some of the changes proposed in other parts of Government could weaken our resilience? The switch-off of the copper wire network for telephones and the proposed increase in the response time of the search and rescue helicopter provided by the coastguard from 15 minutes to 60 minutes will leave us in a worse position if they are allowed to happen. Can the Cabinet Office do something to ensure that they are not?
Alex Burghart
I have landed at Tingwall airport in a storm in the summer, and that was frightening enough.
Alex Burghart
No. One can only imagine what it has felt like in the Shetlands over the past week or so. My sympathies are with the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents. To his point about general resilience, the Government are trying to take a whole-system approach to understand exactly how we can work with emergency responders and those who are responsible for our national infrastructure. We are making progress, but there are always areas in which we can do more work.