Heatwave Response

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I can hear some chuckling about the 40 new hospitals, but I have no doubt that those facilities will be built and must be built. Setting the chuckling aside, the serious question put by the noble Lord is one that I shall take away and seek advice on. Obviously, it is not my department that is supervising that, but the noble Lord makes an important point, and I shall report back to him on it.

We must be responsive to the challenge of climate change. However, we must not forget that there are other challenges at the other end of the spectrum. We also need to continue to protect elderly people against the effects of cold in winter. It is very easy to obsess about extreme heat now, and rightly so, but other dangers also lurk in the natural world that we inhabit.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, we read that a comparatively small number of people had their houses either completely destroyed or very seriously damaged. Should not special provisions be made for such people in the circumstances that my noble friend has described?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the reports were certainly shocking. At the moment, the data is provisional, but we expect there to be up to 100 damaged properties, with at least 41 damaged and destroyed in London alone. In the wildfire in Wennington, Essex, 88 properties were evacuated and 15 damaged and destroyed. Data is provisional at the moment, and we will have to watch that as it comes in.

As for what is done in individual cases, every one of those cases will vary, and I do not think that it is for me at the Dispatch Box to say what might or might not happen in the individual circumstances of a particular family whose house has been destroyed or damaged. I hope that all the authorities concerned will approach those families with the utmost sensitivity and understanding.