Flooding

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I can give that assurance to my hon. Friend, who, with his military background, will know the importance of a command and control structure. The response is linked to the severity of the risk. There is a very clear structure involving silver and gold commands, led respectively by the police and the local authority, which ensures that wherever such an event takes place—he is right that we are seeing extreme weather events with increasing frequency—a tried and tested procedure clicks into place. We practised that structure last year in Exercise Watermark.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

Which of the flood-hit areas has the Secretary of State visited? There was nothing in her statement about the actions she will take, and little that showed that the Government understand that, when the waters recede, so does public and media interest, but the problems that families and firms face simply do not. It can take months to get those problems, including insurance claims, sorted out, so will she call in the insurance companies and ensure that claims are speeded up, as the Labour Government did after the 2007 floods?

[Mrs Spelman]

The right hon. Gentleman did not hear what I said. I know from personal experience exactly what flooding feels like, having been flooded out of my home for 10 months. I visited the flooding in Sussex the week before last, but there is a clear procedure for Ministers, which I imagine he knows. Ministers are not welcome in the immediate emergency because we might get in the way of the emergency services doing their job. We wait to be advised by them on the right time to visit. Had the urgent question not been asked today, I could have been on site. The Under-Secretary has kindly agreed to go to the north-west and west Yorkshire, because there is no substitute for hearing from the ground in the aftermath, as the clear-up operation takes place, what, if anything, we could learn to do better.