Flooding

Mel Stride Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point—the key role played by water companies, which have an absolutely essential task in managing water. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury and I will be happy to discuss the particular case that he mentioned.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

May I thank my right hon. Friend for this morning visiting Kennford, a small village in my constituency that has been overwhelmed by the flooding, and affording me the time to discuss the situation with him? Will he join me in thanking in particular Martin Weiler and his team at the EA, who have done such extraordinary work in the village in reassuring people, providing information, and so on?

[Mr Paterson]

I am sorry that my hon. Friend could not be there in person, but I much appreciate him ringing me in the car as I arrived. I would like to pay tribute to Martin Weiler, his team and all those from the Environment Agency whom I met and spent time with when I went to Kennford. I want to stress how completely awful it was to see those houses in Kennford. There was a thick black line about three feet off the ground, everything in people’s downstairs rooms was completely wrecked and all the electrical appliances were gone. All of that happened in an extraordinarily short amount of time—people were hit by the rapidly rising water over the course of about an hour on Saturday evening. It was shocking and I pay tribute to all the local agencies that I met, the local councils and the local community for how they are pulling together.