Climate Change and Flooding — House of Commons, 2015-12-15
Topic: Public Lands
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We are investing £80 million in flood defences for that area, but I am happy to meet him and his colleagues to talk about what more we can do to increase resilience there It is very important to note that we are not complacent about our flood defences. We will look at what has happened in recent weeks to make sure we learn lessons and act upon the new evidence that has come to light. We have committed ourselves to two reviews: first, the Cumbria flooding partnership, led by the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), who has responsibility for flooding, will look at how we can improve downstream defences, do more to look at the overall catchment and slow the flow upstream, and more fully involve the community. I saw a fantastic project last week at Stockdalewath, where upstream mitigation is being used to reduce the peaks in river flow. This is already happening, but I want to see more of it, which is why we are launching this new workstream. Secondly, we are putting in place a national resilience review to look at how we model and plan for extreme weather, how we protect our critical assets and how we make future investment decisions—my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) asked about that. With the £2.3 billion programme that we have laid out, we want communities to have certainty that their projects are going ahead, so this review will look at future flooding investment to make sure that the formula is adapted to what we now know Let me be clear with Opposition Members that we already have some of the most sophisticated flood modelling in the world. For the first time in Cumbria, during this flooding we used ResilienceDirect, which meant that all the emergency services could communicate with each other in real time and with the Environment Agency, which was very effective at getting early action. We are working to make sure that we keep up to date with the latest trends in climate and in extreme weather, which the hon. Member for Bristol East was talking about The Government are completely committed to doing whatever it takes to make sure Cumbria and the other flood affected areas are up and running and more resilient for the future. But the reality is that without a strong economy, under a Conservative Government, we would not have money for these crucial schemes. It is our party that is investing in new power stations and making sure we have energy supplies, while reducing carbon emissions. It is our party that is investing to make this country more resilient and adapt to climate change and extreme weather. The Labour party has no plan, having shirked these decisions when it was in office and wasted our money. Let us all remember what the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury said: "I’m afraid there is no money" That was the Labour Government’s legacy. The fact is that it is the Conservative party that is protecting our economy, and safeguarding our security and our future.