Flooding

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Just a few weeks ago, on 15 December 2015, we spoke in this Chamber about the devastating effects of Storm Desmond in Cumbria. Sadly, we are now here again debating the aftermath of Storms Eva and Frank and the devastation that has been wrought in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Scotland, along with many other areas in the north. During that debate on Storm Desmond, I welcomed the announcement of a national flood resilience review to assess our infrastructure, with particular reference to electricity substations. I mentioned that because many areas of Lancaster, including the hospitals, many homes and businesses and the university, suffered from long power cuts caused by unforeseen flood damage at a substation in Lancaster. I made the case for electricity substations to be better protected from flooding, to avoid disruption to our healthcare, education and business institutions.

Unfortunately, on Boxing day, my constituency was battered by Storm Eva. Roads were flooded, people’s homes were damaged and a 20-foot sinkhole opened up on the M62, causing massive disruption to travellers on Boxing day. Rochdale town centre was also hit extremely badly by the unprecedented rainfall. One major issue affecting my constituency was a prolonged loss of power, again caused by flood damage to an electricity substation. Around 20,000 homes in the borough of Rochdale lost power, and Electricity North West worked day and night to try to restore services. Again, this has emphasised the importance of adequate defences for our power stations and of a properly funded flood defence policy, with the north getting its fair share.

I would like to use my final minute to pay tribute to our emergency services, whose response over the holiday period was incredible. Two days before Christmas, I visited Heywood firefighters to wish them well for the festive season, not quite anticipating what was in store for them. Heywood fire station is one of only two Greater Manchester fire service stations that has a water rescue unit and firefighters who are fully trained in its use. The water rescue unit was deployed to help with the widespread flooding in areas of Greater Manchester, and its response was magnificent. However, those same firefighters are extremely concerned about further cuts to their services. They are worried that there may come a point when they simply do not have the workforce to be able to deploy their specialist vehicles. It is all very well having the latest kit, but without sufficient numbers of firefighters to operate it, that kit becomes redundant. Finally, it will come as no surprise to the Secretary of State that I again call for the creation of a statutory duty on the fire and rescue service to respond to flooding.