Heatwave Response

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, again, I am tempted to speak outside my brief. Perhaps I could express a personal response: the water that

“droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven”

is a precious resource given to us and to people in every nation, and we have the duty to do the best that we conceivably can to preserve that precious resource in our own nation, as well as an enormous responsibility to bring the gift of clean water to every person and nation of the world.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Could the lessons learned, or the resilience strategy, study the weather this week in detail and the local impacts and assess the likely frequency of future heatwaves? Has the Gulf Stream changed; is hot weather more likely to be pushed up from Europe than before? We need to invest in the right things and not the wrong things and I think a proper assessment of the weather, rather than ex cathedra statements about climate change, are really needed if we are to do the right thing.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend has just made a point, as did so many noble Lords who have contributed, that should not be characterised as a sceptical point, or whatever, as so often those kinds of responses are. Our response should certainly be scientific and based on information and I am not going to talk at this Dispatch Box, as a member of this Government, about what might be the meteorological reasons for this particular invasion of Sahara air. Obviously, the jet stream this year is deflected in an unusual way, but I agree that we should study these things carefully and I hope that my colleagues and the Government’s scientific and meteorological advisers will continue to do so.