Flooding: Somerset

Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for repeating the response to the UQ asked in another place. In doing so he made reference to the Somerset Levels. It will be a considerable relief to those living and farming on the Somerset Levels that the Army has been made available to assist with efforts to protect homes, farms and other businesses. Combined with the efforts of the fire and rescue service, police, Environment Agency staff, local government workers and many volunteers, it is clear that there is finally a concerted effort being made in responding to the floods. However, does the Minister understand the anger and frustration that it took so long for this level of response to be organised by the Government, considering the fact that many people have been dealing with rising water levels since before Christmas? In particular, given that unemployment in the south-west is rising and employment is falling, can the Minister provide an update on the work going into restoring the vital rail connectivity to Devon and Cornwall? Have Ministers formally asked Network Rail to present options for long-term solutions to the vulnerability of this line, including rerouting?

[Lord De Mauley]

First, I say to the noble Lord that I absolutely understand the frustration and the feelings of those who have been directly affected by these frankly awful weather events. We are doing whatever we can to make sure that properties of people are protected from flooding. Our efforts have meant that 1.2 million properties which would have been flooded since December have not been flooded.

The noble Lord asks specifically about Network Rail. I can tell him that Network Rail is developing strategies for securing the long-term resilience of the railways. Over the next five years, the operator has asked the Office of Rail Regulation for nearly half a billion pounds to invest in resilience improvement projects. In terms of the present, Network Rail engineers are on-site at a number of locations in the south-west, doing all they can to make repairs where the weather conditions permit.