Cumbria: Floods

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend is absolutely right that trees are a very effective mechanism in terms of mitigating floods and slowing flood waters down. However, the storms we had over Christmas, Eva and Desmond, were too severe for this alone to have been an entire solution. We have to look at all the various solutions in the round, including managing the flow of water, to help to prevent such problems in future.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend asked for an assurance on the expenditure which now faces the county of Cumbria. Having looked at the figures, Cumbria County Council has produced a report which shows an overall funding gap of £374 million for repairing all the damage done in the county. Is that bill going to be paid? Talking about £2 million here and £4 million there is irrelevant in the context of the huge expenditure now faced by the county. Who is going to pay this bill? Someone has to pay for all the damage that has been done.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. I have given the figure for the funding committed for the transport infrastructure, but over this Parliament £2.3 billion will be provided for a range of flood defence schemes, which should help to mitigate the risk. It compares with £1.7 billion in the previous Parliament and £1.5 billion in 2005-10. At this point, that is what the Government are committing.