Oral Answers to Questions
Julia Buckley Excerpts(1 week, 3 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dan Jarvis
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for consistently and constructively raising those points. Having visited his constituency and seen the devastation at first hand, I am personally extremely keen to ensure that we learn the lessons from what happened during Storm Goretti. As the hon. Gentleman will know, Cobra officials have worked closely with Cornwall council on resilience planning. We are going to launch a public awareness campaign that will support people in Cornwall and beyond during future emergencies. I am also pleased to say that the hon. Gentleman’s constituency is receiving over £2 million this financial year to tackle flooding. He kindly invites me to visit his constituency, so I say to him: time spent in Cornwall is time well spent.
Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury) (Lab)
Water privatisation and climate change have left us with the twin resilience challenges of water scarcity and flooding. To reduce demand on our drinking water supply, is the Cabinet Office looking at the Drinking Water Inspectorate’s landmark report from March, which sets out a governance framework for rainwater harvesting? Could we look at installing rainwater collection for toilet flushing in our publicly owned buildings? We could cut our costs, increase our resilience and make steps towards sustainability.
Dan Jarvis
My hon. Friend raises an important point, and I will look closely at the report she references and ensure that we are discussing it with colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Oral Answers to Questions
Julia Buckley Excerpts(2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Gentleman, but I am a massive football fan so he will forgive me for being a nerd about this: the England team have won 22 out of 29 matches since I have been Prime Minister, and we have got to get that to 24 out of 31 matches, which means we will win on Sunday. I wish the team well. Of course, it is only under Labour Governments that we win the world cup, and in that spirit, I am sure that the whole House will get behind the team.
Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury) (Lab)
Storm Darragh
Julia Buckley Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Ms Oppong-Asare
The Government have been working closely with devolved Administrations, and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster organised a call on Friday to see what work could be done with them collaboratively. A meeting was held to establish which areas were directly affected and where there were threats to life, and an alert was issued as quickly as possible to those areas in particular. However, we recognise that there was some delay in the conveying of information, so we are working with operators to see how they can get the message out as speedily as possible in the event of another storm of this kind.
Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury) (Lab)
Will the Minister please give us an update om the extent of the floods that resulted from the storm? Rural constituencies such as mine experienced a double whammy: we were battered by the storm, and then we were deluged once again by flooding. That double problem is also much more sustained.
Ms Oppong-Asare
A lot of work has been done in this regard, but if my hon. Friend writes to me I shall be able to respond to her directly and adequately.