Storm Arwen: Power Outages

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

The right hon. Gentleman raises some good points, but I do not want us to prejudge the review. He has mentioned quite a few things that he thinks we were short of. I think he is saying that we were short of generators, for example. I have already said that 750 generators were deployed. Of course we need to look at whether we have the right number of generators in terms of the capacity, but I would not want to prejudge that important review and the process behind it. Let us wait and let the review run its course. We have learned some really important lessons from previous reviews, for example on setting up a dedicated phone line, the mutual support and the network of engineers from across the country. Let us not prejudge that review.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Thousands of us in communities across Cumbria have had a devastating 10 days that have been exhausting and even harrowing. I am pretty sure that all of us would agree with the calls for a public inquiry to learn the lessons. I think everyone agrees that lessons need to be learned. However, with Storm Barra approaching, those lessons need to be learned literally overnight, and those lessons are about timeliness as much as anything. Why did it take five days for the Government to come to this House and address the issue? Why did it take until the middle of last week to scramble and deploy additional generators, when that could have happened on the Saturday, eight or nine days ago, so that families were not without heat and light for so long? The relevance of the Army is that it is significant in boosting the capacity of the engineers and also in going from door to door to reach vulnerable people who had no telecoms whatsoever. They include elderly people with care needs who were tucked up in bed to try to stay safe. I want to say a massive thank you to the people in those communities who stepped up to this challenge, and to the engineers who are out there making things better overnight, but what can the Minister say to my communities about how the Government will act to make things better next time?

[Greg Hands]

I do not think that a public inquiry is the right course. It would inevitably take a long time. It would be better to use the established and effective review mechanism that we already have in place, and I invite the hon. Member and all right hon. and hon. Members to participate in it and give their views. I would say that NEWSAC, the mutual aid scheme, was deployed as soon it practicably could be, actually in advance of the storm coming in. I think that that has worked well. On the role of the Army, it is principally a matter for the local resilience forums to make assessments of the resources they need and then to put in that call. From my experience in Aberdeenshire on Friday, I can tell the House that, when the local resilience forum put in that call, the response was close to immediate.