Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to support people affected by Storm Darragh.

As I said to the House on 10 December, Storm Darragh brought strong winds to the UK late last week, and saw a RED weather warning issued for wind covering parts of England and Wales. The Government immediately took action to prepare for the arrival of Storm Darragh. Ahead of the storm, we issued an emergency alert to over 3 million people in affected regions under a red weather warning, urging them to stay indoors. That was the largest use of the early warning system outside of a test scenario.

The Storm resulted in impacts affecting a number key services and infrastructure including power supply, transport, and telecoms. Power outages caused over two million customers to lose their electricity supply. Although the majority of customers had their power restored very quickly, our priority continues to be on ensuring that every household without power is reconnected as quickly as possible. Engineers for the National Grid and other network operators are working to ensure all possible steps are being taken to re-connect the small number of remaining customers off supply. The latest information they have provided is that remaining customers will be reconnected by the end of this week.

Over 10,000 properties were protected from flooding, however, support is being provided by the Environment Agency and local authorities to the small number of households impacted by flooding.

Although the Storm has passed, the Government will continue to follow the recovery efforts and the work of local responders who are supporting communities affected by the Storm and will ensure that lessons identified are used to further improve our resilience to severe weather.

I am grateful for the response from local resilience forums around the country. I praise our emergency responders and utility workers, who have worked so hard in difficult conditions to help the public manage the impacts of the storm.