Flooding: Cornwall

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord referred to the floods in Cumbria. I visited Cockermouth only last week on the anniversary of those floods and I was pleased to see the resilience with which the people of west Cumbria, where both the noble Lord and I come from, have dealt with the situation; I imagine that the same will be true of the people of Cornwall, who are equally resilient. He makes a perfectly valid point about insurance and the Government are talking—and will continue to talk—to the Association of British Insurers about how we can deal with these matters.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, can the Minister assure me that the new Government have had access to the report of the lessons learnt from the floods of six years ago in Boscastle, Cornwall? As I understand it, the role of helicopters, in particular, was absolutely critical in rescue operations then and may well be again in the future. Have the Government had access to any assessment of those lessons?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we look at the lessons learnt from all floods and we have made great progress—as did the previous Government—in getting all agencies, whether local authorities or the voluntary sector, to work together in this field. My noble friend is quite right to refer to the role that helicopters can play, but there is also a large role to be played by the emergency services and the voluntary sector. We greatly praise the RNLI, which I know helped out in west Cumbria, the Red Cross, mountain rescue and many others who help on these occasions.