Extreme Heat Preparedness Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Extreme Heat Preparedness

Stephen Flynn Excerpts
Monday 18th July 2022

(1 year, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

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Kit Malthouse Portrait Kit Malthouse
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That is another completely unfair question and a misunderstanding of Cobra. It is my job to chair that committee, to co-ordinate the civil contingencies secretariat, which sits in my Department, and then to brief the Prime Minister. That is exactly what I did at 8 o’clock yesterday morning.

I am afraid this question feels like a political attempt to create an air of panic about the next 36 hours. Indeed, it seems like a politically motivated assault on the Prime Minister, which is completely unfair. He has been in touch with our work to co-ordinate across all the nations of the United Kingdom, and I am sure he will continue to do so.

Stephen Flynn Portrait Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
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Martin Luther King once said:

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

On that note, and with London boiling, I ask the Minister for his thoughts on the Tory leadership candidates who seek to hold back our commitments on net zero.

Kit Malthouse Portrait Kit Malthouse
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Obviously, that is not within my ministerial remit but, as far as I can see, they are all fine, upstanding people who take climate change seriously. I would be happy to serve under any of them, particularly given that I have been a proponent of the hydrogen economy for more than 20 years. Whoever becomes leader, I hope they will drive forward that aspect of our climate change work.