Wendy Chamberlain
Main Page: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)Department Debates - View all Wendy Chamberlain's debates with the Cabinet Office
Extreme Weather Events: Resilience
Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts(10 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Alex Burghart
No. One can only imagine what it has felt like in the Shetlands over the past week or so. My sympathies are with the right hon. Gentleman’s constituents. To his point about general resilience, the Government are trying to take a whole-system approach to understand exactly how we can work with emergency responders and those who are responsible for our national infrastructure. We are making progress, but there are always areas in which we can do more work.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
As both the Minister and the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), pointed out, this is the latest in a series of storms that we have faced. In October, St Andrews harbour was significantly damaged as a result of the sea surges following Storm Babet. The harbour is run by a trust that dates from when James VI of Scotland granted the land to the people of the town, but as a result of the community ownership fund that the Government have run, and other funds generally, more and more of our assets are owned and run by local communities, which when faced with this kind of disaster have no source of funding to access support. Do the Government agree that they should be looking at ensuring that funding is in place, because St Andrews is a working harbour that is facing £3 million in costs. Without the repairs being made, there is a risk of other parts of the town being affected in the future.