Severe Winter Weather

Lord Patel Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, there is not a niggardly approach to distributing the salt. As for pavements, local people can clear them. The Statement that I repeated referred to the fact that people can clear the pavement if they want to. But the noble Lord is right to raise the issue of increased levels of injury through slipping. It is a big problem. A fall for people in their later years can be very serious indeed.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, as someone who has had two and an half feet of snow, and dug myself out last night to get down the hill to get here, I know the problem of moving around. If the Minister believes in the science of climate change and the ability to predict what future winters over the next decade or even century will be like, how come the science of meteorology cannot tell me what the weather will be like two weeks from now?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the whole population complains about the art of weather forecasting.