Flooding: Cornwall

Lord Clinton-Davis Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the response to the flooding in Cornwall; and what action is being taken to avert or diminish a future incident of this kind.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, the response to last Wednesday’s flooding in Cornwall was truly a team effort. Over 250 properties in all were flooded and people were evacuated overnight. I would like to echo the praise given by the leader of Cornwall Council for the emergency services and offer sympathy to those whose lives have been disrupted. We will review what happened with partners to see whether lessons can be learnt about the future handling of such incidents.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

Is it the case that flood defences, pumps, telephone warnings and ditches were deficient and that longer-term defences are likely to be hit hard by the cuts, thereby imperilling thousands of people, despite promises to the contrary? All this is happening when, as the Secretary of State for Climate Change has acknowledged, extreme weather is becoming more and more frequent.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I do not accept the noble Lord’s first point. Environment Agency teams were out there before the floods happened, clearing out streams and culverts and doing all that they could to make sure that things were mitigated as far as possible. Sadly, the weather was so extreme that these measures were not able to cope with what happened. Something of the order of one and a half inches—that is 38.8 millimetres, if the noble Lord prefers that measure—of rain fell in one hour and, quite frankly, what was in place could not cope with that. I do not accept what the noble Lord said about cuts. We will be spending something of the order of £2.1 billion on flooding and coastal erosion over the next four years, which is only a very small reduction on the previous four years.