Flooding: EU Solidarity Fund

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, as a member of Cumbria County Council, perhaps I may say that the Minister’s announcement will be very welcome in the county, even if she has had to spend several months arguing with the Secretary of State for Justice that this does not represent a terrible affront to national sovereignty. It is vital that we proceed—as the Minister knows, there is a huge problem. The Government have been helpful so far but the infrastructure costs to the public sector alone amount to not many tens of millions but possibly hundreds of millions in the county of Cumbria alone. Does the Minister accept that there needs to be the quickest possible analysis of the total costs so that a proper application can be submitted and we can try to get as much of this money into the county and into other affected areas as quickly as possible?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right: the devastation in Cumbria has been quite significant. He and I have talked both across the Dispatch Box and privately about the needs of Cumbria, and I hope that the flood envoy, as well as Ministers, have been useful in their visits there. The Government are doing everything they can to work with the flood-affected areas to make right the damage. However, they were very keen to make an immediate response and moved very quickly to remedy some of the immediate problems. This is a much longer-term payment—back in 2007, it took months to come through—so we need to separate the immediate recovery operation from some of the more long-term funding that will come through.